


One Giant, Confusing Paradox

by FutureSunshine02



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bodyswap, Companions Meet Companions (Doctor Who), F/F, F/M, M/M, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23585617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FutureSunshine02/pseuds/FutureSunshine02
Summary: Each doctor and their respective companions wake up one day, horrified to find that they have somehow switched bodies in the night. Then, just to rub it in, they are all thrown into one TARDIS in hopes of fixing it. Bear with me, this will get extremely confusing.
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams, The Doctor & River Song
Comments: 155
Kudos: 220





	1. Chapter 1

Rose's eyes snapped open.

 _'Calm down.'_ She told herself, still breathing quickly and heavily. _'You're in bed. It was just a dream.'_

Truth be told, she had been experiencing these nightmares ever since she'd arrived on the TARDIS, and they were becoming steadily more frequent; at this precise moment, she was trying her hardest not to think of the small child donning a gas mask that'd plagued her dream just minutes ago.

Almost every night now, she was jolted awake from a dream like this, and if it wasn't the Empty Child, it was monsters like the Daleks or the Gelth that was the cause of her restlessness. She'd developed this routine of calming herself every time she woke, so that even when she did achieve a rare night of dreamless sleep, she subconsciously closed her eyes and breathed deeply in the mornings. It was a habit she was in no hurry to break out of.

 _'Maybe now Jack's here, it'll help.'_ Rose found herself thinking as she rolled over, still half-asleep, and planned to drape her hand over the side of the bed.

THUD.

She drew her hand back immediately, as it had met with a wall that Rose swore hadn't been there yesterday; she hadn't felt much pain, due to her lack of wakefulness, but the shock was enough to make her sit up, blinking rapidly.

Her first solid, coherent thought was that this was definitely not her room; she knew that she was an extremely messy person, so the fact that the floor wasn't covered with discarded clothes and empty crisp packets was her first clue that something was very wrong. The second clue was the blue coat draped over the chair next to the bed, looking to be straight out of WW2; unless she was very much mistaken, that was Jack's coat, which meant she was in his room.

Even more confused than ever, Rose slowly reached for the light switch next to the bed that was present in all the TARDIS bedrooms; after blinking at the sudden light, she marvelled at her ability to see clearer by lowering her eyes to her hand.

She froze.

The hand on the light switch was large, larger than the hand she was used to, and the nails much shorter and dirtier. It was attached to an arm with a generous amount of muscle, though not enough to be seen through a sleeve, which in turn was emerging from a white t-shirt she didn't remember donning the night before.

With a jolt she realised she was in control of that hand, which she shakily brought closer to her face to examine; in doing so, she brought her other hand into view, which she noticed with dismay was in the exact same state. She opened and closed her fists, proving that they did in fact belong to her.

"What on earth...?" She muttered under her breath, only to hear a deep, masculine voice escape her vocal chords; immediately, she recoiled in horror and jumped out of bed with a strange burst of energy.

All at once, she noticed her centre of gravity was completely off; she was suddenly much taller, and dealing with a lot more leg than she was used to. She tripped over her own feet multiple times as she scrambled to the chair in a panic, where she leant on it for balance. After staring at the blue coat for a couple seconds, it suddenly clicked; Rose felt her eyes widen comically as she turned to the desk mirror.

Captain Jack Harkness stared back at her, an expression of utmost terror on his face.

* * *

Jack was woken with a jolt when he heard a lot of high-pitched screaming; he flailed around for a second, not knowing where he was, which caused him to promptly fall off the couch he'd been laying on with a thud. He groaned, looking up and seeing hundreds of shelves of books; how had he ended up in the library, when he distinctly remembered making it to bed last night?

Looking down at himself only raised more questions; he seemed to be wearing a maroon jumper underneath a leather jacket, which might be something the Doctor would find fashionable, but certainly not him. He didn't have time to ponder this further however, as the screams that'd woken him started again, giving him the motivation to jump up off the ground.

"Rose?" He shouted worriedly, not noticing the fact that his voice was normally deeper than that, and rushed down the hallway towards her bedroom. However, as he got closer, he realised the screams weren't coming from Rose's room, but from his own; now thoroughly confused, he entered, ready to fight something. He was not expecting to freeze in the doorway, staring at something he never thought he'd see.

Himself. From an outsider's perspective, anyway.

This perfect replica of himself was slouched in front of the mirror on the desk, a terrified expression on its face, as it ran its hands over his cheeks and through his hair as though it couldn't believe what it was seeing. Jack cleared his throat, announcing his presence, which immediately caused his clone to turn to him, wide-eyed.

"Oh, Doctor, thank god." The replica sighed in relief, causing Jack's eyes to narrow in suspicion. "You need to help me. I know I look like Jack, but I'm actually-"

"Rose." Jack nodded, recognising her mannerisms and way of talking even through his own voice and American accent. "...I'm not the Doctor." He suddenly recognised the northern accent coming out of his mouth as he looked down at his clothes again.

"...Jack?" Rose guessed, and after seeing his brief nod, ran her hands down her borrowed face again. "What's happened? Do you know?"

"No." Jack bit back a sarcastic retort, as he could see how tired his own body looked and knew Rose wouldn't appreciate it. "Though I bet it has something to do with the Doctor. He's definitely the type to do something stupid like this."

"As much as I hate to admit it, you're right." Rose rolled her borrowed eyes, then stared intently at Jack, trying hard to see him through his doctor-y exterior. "This is so weird."

"You're telling me." Jack shifted uncomfortably under his own scrutiny. "Now come on, let's go find him. I bet he's already in the console room."

Jack held the door open for Rose, as they exited his bedroom and proceeded to walk down the corridor in an awkward silence.

"...So, I'm guessing since I'm you and you're him..." Rose began, still cringing at her deep voice. "That means the Doctor is..."

"Yep." Jack replied, popping the 'p'.

"Great." Rose cringed, not even having the time to mentally prepare herself before entering the console room.

"Ah, Rose, you're here!"

Rose immediately cringed even more at hearing the Doctor in control of her voice. She was just about to make a comment on it when the Doctor emerged from behind the console, and the words died in her throat.

"I was going to wake you up, but you just looked so peaceful. Plus, you snore, and I wanted to wait until Jack was here to tell you that without getting slapped."

Seeing the Doctor's manic grin on her own face would've been enough to disconcert her by itself, but that coupled with the mess of blond hair, lack of makeup and tattered pyjamas was enough to render Rose speechless.

"What's up with you two today?" The Doctor frowned when he noticed their tense postures and uncomfortable expressions. "You should have laughed at that joke, Jack. Unless..." He suddenly looked between the both of them in quick succession, a wide smile creeping up his borrowed face. "It was a three way swap! Fantastic!" He quickly did a circuit of the console, flicking some random levers as he did so. "Which means... _you're_ Rose, and _you're_ Jack."

He pointed at them both in turn, and they both nodded shortly. "Thought so." He smirked, though it looked completely wrong on Rose's face. "This is fascinating, I've never seen this before." He suddenly turned and pushed some more buttons on the console. "You know, we could conduct several experiments..."

"Doctor." Rose cut in, her borrowed voice like a warning. "You will not conduct _any_ experiments in my body. I would like it back in one piece, believe it or not."

"Right." The Doctor had the decency to look slightly apologetic. "Sorry. Let's just say... don't do anything to the body you're occupying that you wouldn't do to your own?"

Rose nodded, satisfied, until seeing the very Jack-like smirk on the Doctor's features.

"Nothing I wouldn't do to myself, you say?" He asks in a suggestive tone, his smirk widening.

"No!" The Doctor's borrowed head shot up to glare at his own body. "No. I see what you're thinking, and stop thinking it."

Jack pouted. Rose looked back and forth between them; it was beyond weird to hear the Doctor chastise Jack with her own voice.

"So, from your lack of knowledge about it, I'm guessing you didn't do this." She sighed, moving to lean against the console. "Do you know who did?"

"Unfortunately, no." The Doctor moved the screen around so he could look at it. "But what I do know is how I can fix it."

"Really?" Jack asked, surprised. The Doctor never normally had a solution to the problem this early on.

"Oh yes." He nods back grimly, tapping the screen until he liked the look of the readings. "Normally, soul displacement can be reversed by getting too near a paradox. The only paradox I can cause quite easily is... well, let's just say you're not going to like it."

"If it means getting back to my own body, I don't care." Rose gritted her borrowed teeth. "My hair looks completely abysmal. You couldn't have at least brushed it?"

"Sorry." The Doctor smiled sheepishly. "Was a little distracted. Now keep in mind, you'll have to act like the person whose body you're occupying. The people we're meeting will pick up on the smallest mistake, so you'll have to be convincing."

"No problem." Jack rubbed his borrowed hands together, giving his best Doctor smile. "So, who are we meeting?"

"Me." The Doctor said simply, programming the console to send a distress call to the future, one that only other TARDISes could pick up. "I think it's time I tell you about regeneration."


	2. Chapter 2

"-soon, so you'd better fix this quickly."

"I know, I know, I'm sure I'll have a solution within the hour. _Well_ , 90% sure. _Well_ , above 75. _Well_ , at least 50."

"You'd better. What do we do when she wakes up?"

"Just explain it to her, calmly and rationally. I bet she'll think this is completely hilarious, once she's had a cup of coffee anyway. You know how she is in the mornings."

"I'm surprised you don't want to keep her in the dark on this one. You know, she's told me about some adventures she had when she travelled with you, and-"

If their voices on the other side of the door hadn't woken her up, the sound of another door slamming would've; as it was, Donna stirred, dimly recognising the voices as the Doctor's and Martha's, though Martha's seemed a little off. It took another moment for her to realise that she hadn't taken in anything they were saying, as she hadn't been fully conscious while hearing their conversation.

She sighed, turning over. Even though she wasn't fully awake yet, the door slamming had startled her, and while she hadn't taken in their words, Donna remembered the tense undertones of their voices as they spoke. This mystery is what caused her to groan, turn over again and reach for the light switch, rubbing her eyes.

Life in the TARDIS had certainly taken a turn for the more interesting after Martha had shown up, and Donna was curious to see how it would play out; while she _had_ helped them achieve peace between the humans and the Hath the day before, the loss of Jenny had hit the Doctor hard, so Martha had decided to stay a little longer to help him through it. Donna didn't mind this, as she genuinely liked Martha, but she saw the look the Doctor gave her whenever she wasn't looking; a gaze of admiration filled with regret, along with an apology he had clearly never spoken.

Every time he looked at his former companion in this way, Donna resisted the urge to roll her eyes and lock them in a room together until he apologised for whatever he'd done. Speaking of those two, their earlier conversation had sounded serious, and Donna groaned quietly when she realised she was going to have to get out of bed; it wasn't that she had trouble waking up, quite the opposite actually, but she maintained the illusion so she could spend that extra hour under the warmth of the covers. Still, she sighed, and sat up.

Immediately, she came face to face with one Martha Jones.

"Oh my gosh, Martha! What are you doing in here?" Donna held her hand over her heart as though shocked. "You scared me." It took a second for Donna to realise that the Martha across the room had just mimicked her exactly, from the gestures to her exact sentence. The penny dropping, her jaw immediately dropped open. Martha's did the same.

She was looking into a floor length mirror on the opposite wall.

"Oh. My. God." Donna noticed with a jolt that she was speaking in Martha's naturally quieter voice, and gulped. She shakily stood, and moved closer to the mirror until she was right in front of it. "What the f-" She held her hand out to touch the mirror, noticing that her arm was indeed a few shades darker than she remembered. She ran her hands through her hair, though it wasn't her hair, nor her hands, and wondered how on earth it had stayed so straight after sleeping. She'd have to ask Martha about that. Finally, she met eyes with her reflection, and watched the unfamiliar brown irises go through a cycle of fear, denial, confusion, and determination within the span of three seconds.

"I am going to _kill_ him."

* * *

Donna stomped down the halls of the TARDIS, not knowing what she was going to say to whoever she bumped into, but she did know she was very angry, and that normally helped her make things up as she went along. While the loss of around 4 inches in height kind of diminished her stomps a little, along with the fact she was still wearing Martha's blue pyjamas, she felt so justified she didn't care.

Finally, she stormed into the TARDIS kitchen, her best withering glare armed on her borrowed face. The Doctor was indeed there, his back to her, making a cup of coffee. That should have been her first clue something was terribly wrong, but she was too angry to notice.

" _You_." She hissed, causing him to immediately turn. As soon as he laid eyes on her, a mixture of confusion and wonder settled over his face. "Oh, don't you look at me like that." Donna narrowed her eyes. While Martha's voice was also good at yelling, it didn't have the natural volume and gravitas her own did.

"Look, Donna-" He tried talking, holding up his hands in surrender, but Donna latched onto the use of her name.

"Oh, so you know what's happened?" She took a few menacing steps forward, and even though he towered over her in terms of height, he immediately backed away into the kitchen counter. "I don't know who you think you are, standing there in your stupid blue suit and performing experiments on your friends. Because that's what this is, isn't it? An experiment! What, did you want to see how we'd react or something? You could've at least warned us first, or even asked for permission!"

"Donna-" He tried again, but she wasn't having it.

"No, spaceman, you listen to _me_ for a change!" She poked his chest, standing on her toes to get closer to his eyeline. "You'd better change us back _right_ _now_. I don't have _nearly_ enough medical training to pass as Martha, and..."

She stopped suddenly her eyes widening. "Oh my god, Martha! She's in my body, isn't she?! I can't believe you did this after what happened to her last year. What was your thought process on that, by the way? Like, 'hm, I feel bad for not acknowledging Martha's massive crush on me because I was so hung up on Rose, so what should I do to make it up to her? Oh, I know, I'll see how she'll react when she wakes up in Donna's body!'"

"Donna-"

"I mean, after becoming the chief medical officer for a huge secret agency that fights aliens, who'd want my life instead?" Donna seemed to deflate even more after each word, the anger slowly seeping out of her borrowed voice. "I'm just a boring temp, from Chiswick. I'm not important. And Martha deserves more than that."

" _Don't say that!_ " The Doctor finally managed to cut in, with so much passion in his voice that Donna looked up in surprise. His face was so open and genuine that it shocked her into silence, something that she didn't think had been possible. "Everyone's important, and no one should've made you believe otherwise." He grabbed her borrowed hand in both of his, and squeezed it to make his point. "I swear, Martha would count herself lucky if she had to live your life."

Donna narrowed her eyes again, though this time it out was out of suspicion instead of anger. Slowly, she slid Martha's hand out of his, and looked directly into his eyes as though trying to see behind them.

"...Martha?" She asked quietly. Immediately, the doctor's expression changed back to the mixture of confusion and wonder.

"How did you know?" What Donna now knew to be Martha tilted her head slightly in confusion.

"The Doctor never comforts me as openly as that." Donna now felt awkward, as she had apparently been yelling at the wrong person. "Plus, he doesn't drink coffee."

"My coffee!" Martha exclaimed in realisation, and immediately rushed over to pour it. "Oh, thank god, it's still warm." She sighed in relief, taking a grateful sip. Donna looked on in bemusement.

"This is so strange." She rubbed her forehead. "I never thought I'd see the day the doctor acts like a normal person."

"Yeah? Try seeing someone in your own body yelling at you, thinking you're someone else." Martha laughed in between gulping down her coffee.

"Oh." Donna winced. She hadn't even thought about that from Martha's point of view. "Sorry. I thought you were-"

"Don't worry about it." Martha set the now-empty mug down on the counter again. "You didn't know. Oh, and speaking of not knowing..." A bashful smile crept up the doctor's face, showing the real Martha shining through.

"Did you do something?" Donna asked, a grin slowly forming on her own.

"Kinda." Martha rubbed the back of her neck, smiling wider. "When the Doctor woke up in your body, he was all panicked, and assumed it was you in his body. I just... didn't correct him."

"You mean..." Donna looked down at herself. "He thinks I'm-"

"Yep." Martha grinned. The sudden change to a very doctor-like expression surprised Donna for a second.

"Oh, this is going to be fun." Donna smirked.

* * *

To their disappointment, it didn't even last five minutes.

"Donna! I've figured out how to fix the TARDIS! I just needed to fix this tube to the friction contrafribullator, and-"

Donna watched as her own body came crashing through the door in an extremely doctor-like fashion, carrying a large box of various gadgets. It stopped short as soon as it laid eyes on her.

"Oh, Martha, you're up!" The Doctor grinned awkwardly, setting the box down. "I trust Donna has informed you on our... situation?"

"Yep." Donna replied, staring intently at the box as she thought it would be too weird to look into her own eyes. "This is... something, even for you."

Suddenly, she remembered how she had to seem as Martha-like as possible, so she decided to go against all her instincts and actually look at him. This was a mistake, as she immediately took in the rumpled purple pyjamas she had donned last night and the messy tangle her hair always created while sleeping.

"God, spaceman, you couldn't have at least fixed the hair?" She blurted out before she could stop herself. Immediately, the Doctor looked between both of them in quick succession, and after taking in his own body facepalming, he finally came to the correct conclusion.

"Oh, I see." His signature grin looked extremely out of place on Donna's face, causing the genuine article to wince. "Very clever. Did you seriously think that would work?"

"Hey, I didn't even do anything." Martha shrugged. "You just jumped to the wrong conclusion, and I didn't correct you."

"I have to hand it to you though, that was excellent acting." The Doctor sent an admiring look at his own body. "If Donna hadn't ruined it, you probably would've lasted at least another 20 minutes! _Well_ , 10. _Well_..."

"Yeah, we get it." Donna cut in. The Doctor's weird emphasis on his words might work in his own voice, but certainly not in Donna's. "Wait, did you say you managed to _fix_ the TARDIS? What was wrong with it?"

"Oh, nothing in particular." He replied vaguely, picking up the box again and bustling out of the room. Donna didn't think she'd ever seen her body move with such enthusiasm before. Rolling their eyes at each other, they followed him down the corridors and to the console room.

"If nothing's wrong, what's this about then?" Donna patted a giant tube protruding from the console, which seemed to be plugged in to some kind of power generator.

"Oh, well..." The Doctor stalled for a second as he bounced around the console, pressing the occasional button. "Whatever did this to us, did it while we were all sleeping. Now, I can only assume that mind-swapping on this scale takes a lot of power. I say this because Martha was woken up by the console sparking everywhere."

Donna turned to the doctor-lookalike, who nodded in confirmation.

"It turns out, that large mass of power interfered with the console systems." He suddenly stopped moving, right in front of the generator. "Luckily, I had all the components I needed to help get her head screwed on again. Isn't that right?" He patted the console.

"Yeah." Donna drew out the word like she always did when the Doctor started talking to the TARDIS, but Martha's voice didn't have the same effect somehow. Trying very hard not to focus on the fact that it was now _her_ voice speaking to the TARDIS, she added quietly: "I don't think I've ever sounded that smart before."

Immediately, the Doctor and Martha exchanged glances that Donna pretended she couldn't see. It was almost as if they looked worried, but luckily they didn't get to say any more on the topic, as the screen attached to the console started beeping insistently.

"Oh, what now?" The Doctor groaned as he moved the monitor towards him, but his new blue eyes immediately widened after seeing the readings on the screen.

"What? What is it?" Martha looked over his shoulder in curiosity, and Donna took a moment to appreciate the Doctor's voice admitting he didn't know something.

"A distress signal." He turned to them so they could see the realisation on his borrowed face. "A particular type of distress signal that can only be sent from another TARDIS."

"Wait a second." Donna stepped back at this revelation. "There are _more_ of you?"

"Well, yes and no." He replied, flitting off to fiddle with the console again. "If you mean other Time Lords, then no, I'm the only one left."

Martha bowed her head at this, and placed a comforting hand on his borrowed shoulder. It probably didn't help that it was his own hand, as he jumped as though he'd been electrified and moved to the opposite side of the console. "But yes, there are more versions of me specifically. I mean, I have a time machine, I'm bound to run into myself more than once."

"Wait, so there can be two of you in one place at the same time?" Donna laughed despite herself. "That'd get confusing. How would people tell you apart?"

"Oh, I generally only run into versions of me with a different face." He replied casually. "I never run into the same regeneration. You're right, that _would_ get confusing." He stopped when he noticed Donna's confused expression clouding Martha's features. "What?"

"Don't worry Doctor, I've got this one." Martha rolled her eyes at his obliviousness. "Donna, when a Time Lord is close to death, they go through a genetic healing process called regeneration. It basically means he can heal whatever mortal wound he's sustained, and live for another lifetime."

"The curse of the Time Lords." The Doctor sighed. "It means we can live over 12 times longer than a normal human. The only problem is, the process rewrites every single one of my cells and turns me into a whole other person. I've had many different personalities over the years."

"I know, I've read the files." Martha smirked. "You know, _technically_ you're still employed at UNIT. Whatever happened to that yellow car you used to drive around?"

"Ah, good old Bessie." The Doctor reminisced for a second, then shook his head. "We're getting off track. The point is, every time I've ran into a past version of myself, it's in a different regeneration, so I have a different face. Got it?"

"Just about." Donna tried her hardest to make sense of all the information that'd just been thrown at her, while a headache slowly developed in her temples. "So, this distress call is coming from a past version of you with a different face?"

"I'm assuming so." He danced around the console a bit more, before pulling the large lever downwards and seemingly landing the TARDIS. "And you should know by now that if people need help, I never refuse. Especially if that person is me, which happens more often than... oh my god."

"What? What's the matter?" Martha immediately asked, concerned.

"I'm finally ginger!!" He laughed triumphantly, having grabbed a handful of Donna's hair that had fallen in his face and was now staring at it in delight. "I can't tell you how much I've wanted-"

"Alright, sunshine, do we need to give you a moment alone with my hair?" Donna asked, amusement seeping into her borrowed voice as Martha rolled her eyes again. Nothing, she thought, would ever be funnier than the Doctor rolling his eyes at _himself_.

"Right, sorry." The sound of her voice snapped the Doctor out of his trance, and he looked faintly embarrassed as he reached for the screen again and immediately dropped his jaw in surprise. "Well. That's never happened before."

"What...?" Martha began to ask, but the question died in her throat. Standing in the field outside the doors was not one, but four versions of the TARDIS, not including their own.

"Ah. There's never been this many of us in one place before." The Doctor looked lost in thought, and Donna only just stopped herself from mentioning how she's probably never thought that hard before. "Wait a minute. Displacement... this means the paradox will..."

"Oh god, here we go..." Martha sighed in resignation, and Donna could almost see the impending disaster when the Doctor's manic grin crept up her own face in front of her.

"Right, here's what we're going to do." He bounced over to the front doors. "We're going to have to go out there and talk to those different versions of me while pretending to be each other. And it's possible that up to two of them could be from the future, so we'll have to be very precise. That means no attitude, Donna."

"Hey!" She swatted at his arm before realising it was technically her own. Meanwhile, Martha was sporting a terrified expression that looked positively hilarious on the Doctor's features.

"You want me to act like you?" She asked, gulping. "There's no way I can do that."

"Sure you can!" The Doctor chirped encouragingly, though not giving her much of a choice as he reached for the door handle. "You'll get through this, no problem."

"Right." Donna muttered under her breath as she watched herself fling the doors open. "No problem."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see more, please be sure to leave a comment, they really help to motivate me!


	3. Chapter 3

Amy stirred slowly.

She was waking from a dreamless sleep, for which she was extremely thankful; the events of the day before had been particularly nightmare-inducing, even though she knew it had been harder on Rory and the Doctor than it had been on herself.

Their visit to Apalapucia had resulted in both of her favourite people seeing what would've happened if she'd been left on that planet for 36 years, and she could tell leaving the future version of herself behind hadn't been pleasant for them. Well, from the fact that Rory hadn't left her side since, anyway. The Doctor had also been particularly concerned, as he'd refused to leave her bedside when she'd originally woken from the handbots' sedative; until, of course, Rory'd started passionately kissing her, during which he'd made a rather hasty exit.

Amy nearly laughed at the memory, still almost entirely asleep; however, she was sobered slightly when she remembered how both of them had treated her like she was made of glass for the rest of the day, even though she'd told them both multiple times she could handle herself. While she hoped it wouldn't last much longer, she knew Rory'd been deeply troubled by what he'd seen, and that the carefulness was his way of making up for the years he thought he'd lost.

Remembering how much she loved her husband, she hugged the form that was pressed to her even tighter; it was at times like these she was glad they'd managed to convince the Doctor to give up on the bunk beds, since she could no longer have children. However, she frowned slightly when she realised she was hugging Rory while laying on her right side instead of her left; they'd never switched sides of the bed in their sleep before, and as her slowly waking mind considered this, it didn't even seem physically possible.

Blearily, she opened her eyes, which confirmed she was indeed on the other side of the bed; long red hair was obscuring her vision, which was normal, but as she moved to brush it out of the way, it became strikingly clear that said red hair was not attached to her own head. Changing immediately to a state of complete wakefulness, she quickly moved as far as she could away from the other person in her bed, her eyes wide.

She was sharing a bed with herself.

* * *

Rory awoke with a jolt.

He knew the reason he'd been woken was the loud shouting that seemed to be coming from another room, but at that specific moment he was more confused about his own whereabouts. Somehow, he was sitting in the seat next to the TARDIS console, even though he knew he'd fallen asleep with Amy after swearing to never leave her side again; however, after the shouts suddenly became louder, his focus dramatically shifted.

"Doctor?" He shouted back, having recognised the voice as distinctly male; his voice sounded a little off, but he could do nothing other than clear his throat slightly as he'd already started rushing down the TARDIS corridor. After quickly deducing that the shouting was coming from his and Amy's own room, he immediately entered, in no way prepared for what he was about to see.

A full body mirror affixed to the wall opposite the door, that showed the Doctor's reflection.

"What?!" Was the only thing that came out of his mouth, and as he watched it also come out of the mouth of the Doctor in the mirror, who was looking back at him with an equal expression of shock, it fully cemented the reality of the situation.

"Doctor! Doctor, you've got to help me, there's a clone...!" A voice was shouting somewhere on his right, which he would've recognised if he wasn't so entranced with his reflection. Slowly, he stepped closer to the mirror, watching the Doctor do the same.

"What... I'm not... This isn't..." He muttered, his thoughts going a mile a minute as he looked down at himself. He was indeed wearing the Doctor's trademark tweed jacket, complete with elbow patches and all; he gulped as he took in the red bowtie wrapped around his collar.

"Doctor! I know you're vain and all, but can you please stop looking in the mirror for one second? There's a clone!"

Again, he ignored the voice on his right as he flinched, finally recognising the voice that'd been coming out of his mouth as the Doctor's. Quickly, he started running his shaking hands over his face and through his hair, as though confirming they were really there.

"Doctor, there's a clone... wait a second, what if it's a flesh avatar?!"

"This cannot be happening..."

"A flesh avatar! Of me! In my bed! And what's it done to Rory?!"

"This can't be possible...!"

"Doctor! Where's R... oh my god, it's waking up!"

Finally, the kerfuffle had seemed to rouse the Amy lookalike, who it seemed was a very deep sleeper; whoever it was sat up slowly, blinking at their stammering voices. They looked at the real Amy, who was in a full on panic by now, then at the Doctor by the mirror, who was furiously poking his face, until their eyes finally came to rest of their own hands. Amy watched as realisation shined through her own brown irises in front of her.

This Amy lookalike suddenly looked between the other two people in the room in quick succession; the real Amy watched incredulously as whoever it was rolled their eyes, jumped out of bed and marched over to the man in front of the mirror.

"Doctor...!" Amy tried to prepare her friend, but he didn't even flinch as the fake Amy reached inside his jacket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. Immediately, Amy's lookalike raised the screwdriver to eye-level and used it to create a loud, high pitched noise that immediately cut off both of them mid-speech and caused them to finally lock eyes with each other.

"Alright, everybody calm down!" The fake Amy tried to say reassuringly, causing the real Amy to roll her eyes. They'd even taken her accent, how offensive. "There's no need to panic."

"Oh no, Amy!" The Doctor suddenly jumped in front of the fake Amy, glaring at the genuine article. "I know this might sound crazy, but that's a flesh avatar. I'm the real Rory."

"Excuse me?" Amy looked between them both in confusion, finally noticing the deepness of her voice. "What...?" She looked down suddenly, only to notice that the hands attached to her were definitely not her own. "Oh my god, what's happened to me?!"

"I told you not to panic." Her clone pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as Amy scrambled out of bed, only to immediately lose her balance due to a different centre of gravity. "It seems we have some kind of a... body switch situation."

"Body sw..." Amy began, only to have a wave of realisation crash over her. Vaguely wondering if she was dreaming, she moved to join the Doctor in front of the mirror; she blinked in confusion when she saw her husband in front of her, rather than her usual reflection. "You're right. I'm not Rory."

"But I am." Amy turned at hearing the Doctor's voice, but only now realising that it wasn't actually him speaking. Instead, looking out from behind her best friend's green eyes was the man who'd waited 2000 years outside the Pandorica for her. "Amy?"

"Yeah." She sighed, pressing her palms into her new eyes tiredly. "I'm Amy. Which means..."

They both slowly turned to see Amy's body grinning widely, fiddling with the sonic while bouncing on the spot a little.

"Now was that so hard?" What was clearly the Doctor booped Amy on the nose with his sonic. "Honestly, humans are so quick to panic. Maybe try not jumping to conclusions as much? It would make my life a lot easier."

"Doctor." Amy began in a warning tone, flinching when her husband's voice escaped her vocal chords. "Please tell me you know how to fix this."

"Well, actually, I've already thought of a few theories while you two were being all human-y and panicking over nothing." He replied smugly, absently scanning them all with the sonic.

"And will any of them actually work?" Rory questioned, finding it beyond weird to see his wife's body act like the Doctor.

"...well, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?" He answered quickly, rushing out the door before either of them could reply. The couple followed him, rolling their eyes.

As they walked down the corridor, Amy awkwardly shoved her hands into the pockets of Rory's dressing gown. The Doctor had gone on ahead, and she frowned as she watched his new red hair dance out of sight around a corner.

"Are you alright?" Rory asked from just behind her. If she tried, she could almost imagine he was still... him. "This is... a lot to take in, especially after yesterday."

"Yes, I'm fine." Amy replied shortly, cringing again at the voice that wasn't hers. "I can handle it."

"I know." Rory gently spun her around so he could look earnestly into her eyes, but seeing him through the Doctor's body only increased her conflicted feelings. "Just know that you can tell me anythi-" He stopped suddenly, noticing the pained look on his own face. "This is weird, isn't it?"

"We're well past weird now, stupid face." She patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go see what the Doctor's doing."

As they entered the console room, they both realised what a surreal experience it was to see Amy's body rushing around the console, piloting the TARDIS as though she knew how to fly it. As they got closer, they saw a message on the screen that contained only coordinates, but with an added 'x' on the end.

"...can't just go jumping out of spaceships whenever she feels like it. What if I'm busy, or can't get to the controls? Of all the stupid, self destructive..."

Finally, the Doctor flipped a switch, rolling his new eyes; both the TARDIS doors immediately swung open to reveal one River Song, who walked in as casually as she could for someone who's just been flung out of the airlock of a crashing spaceship.

"Hello, sweetie." She grinned over at Rory, who immediately stiffened. "Thanks for the lift. I wasn't sure if you'd get the message in time, it was all sort of last minute."

"River-" The Doctor began, but instead only drew attention to himself and Amy, who was now sporting a terrified expression on her borrowed features.

"Hello, mother, father." She smiled as she strolled over to the console, choosing not to notice everyone backing away slightly. "I trust you're well. And before you say anything..." She turned to Rory again, smirking flirtatiously. "I picked this moment in the timeline specifically to send the message to, so I knew you'd know the truth about me at this point."

"River, this is actually... not the best time." The Doctor tried to insert again, but he wasn't exactly doing anything to _stop_ River's slow advancement on Rory either. In fact, a slightly amused expression seemed to be settled over Amy's features.

"Why? You're not doing anything." She'd finally backed Rory up against the railing, who'd started stammering awkwardly. "Well, not yet anyway." At this, she wrapped her arms around Rory's neck, which was the moment that seemed to snap Amy out of her stupor.

"River! Stop, that's not the Doctor." She cut in, glaring at her own body. The Doctor shrugged, as though saying he couldn't have done anything to stop it, and went back to fiddling with the console.

"What?" River's head whipped round to look curiously at what she thought was Rory. "Of course it is, father. Don't be fooled, he always gets cute and nervous like this when I flirt with him."

"Oi! I do not!" The Doctor turned to River, an offended look on his borrowed face.

"...Yeah, _that's_ the Doctor." Amy sighed, rubbing her own borrowed face. "I'm Amy, and who you were about to kiss is Rory. We've been mind-swapped for some reason."

"Oh, what have you gotten yourself into now?" River rolled her eyes, but it didn't cover up the awkward manner in which she removed her arms from around her father's neck. "I swear, I can't even leave you alone for five minutes."

"Hey!" The Doctor moved to stand in front of River, noticing too late he was now a little closer to her eyeline, and brandished the sonic in her face angrily. "I'm responsible, I can do responsible things." He suddenly twirled away and moved to the other side of the console. "Besides, who's always having to rescue who from jumping out of spaceships or off buildings?"

"...Okay, I'll admit it, this is strange." River managed to tear her eyes away from the Doctor in Amy's body, only to look upon the real Amy, who was standing as though she was extremely tense and uncomfortable in her husband's body, and Rory, who was still recovering from being on the other end of her flirty advances. "How are you two holding up? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Amy replied too quickly, as though it was an automatic response to a question she'd been asked a lot recently. Rory only nodded in agreement, despite the slightly horrified expression still on his borrowed features.

"Good." River nodded back, sending an apologetic look at her father before turning back to the now red-headed Time Lord. "Now, I'm assuming you didn't do this?"

"Yes, River, would you just look at all this marvellous body-swapping technology I managed to whip up from scratch!" The Doctor exclaimed sarcastically, gesturing at nothing. "No, of course I didn't. I'm still trying to figure out who did."

"Well, you'd better get on with it." River looked between the three of them again. "I don't like this at all."

"You're not the only one." Rory chanced a smile, trying to dissipate the awkwardness that'd developed between him and his daughter. "At least I didn't wake up wearing a fez."

"Ooh!" The Doctor immediately stopped in front of Amy, a look of glee creeping up his borrowed features. "A fez would match really well with your h-"

"Doctor, if you put a fez on my head, I swear I will steal River's gun and shoot it off you myself." Amy cut in, the smirk on her face undercutting the sentiment a bit.

"Oh, all right." The Doctor pouted back, moving to zoom past River but instead he tripped over his own feet. Luckily, she managed to catch him right before he hit the floor. "Oops! Sorry River, the loss of height must have messed up my centre of gravity."

"Please, you've always been this clumsy." River rolled her eyes, lifting him back onto his feet again. "You just have a good excuse for it now."

"Yeah right, I'm not even all that shorter than him." Amy laughed, finally seeing the humour in the situation. "If anything, your centre of gravity's more likely to be messed up due to the loss of mass around the chin area."

"Hey!" The Doctor cried out again, immediately moving over to Rory and scrutinizing his own face. "My chin is not that b... no, wait, I see it, I definitely see it."

"Great, now _I'm_ stuck with it." Rory batted him away, though the fact that it was technically his wife still freaked him out. "So, about your theories on how to fix this?"

"Ah, yes." The Doctor pulled the screen towards him and tapped it lightly; immediately, River's message faded away to show the results of the scan he'd carried out on all three of them. "The good news is, our bodies are technically fine, which means whoever did this didn't use it as a distraction for a deadly virus or anything. Not that I wouldn't be prepared, mind you, I've carried the antidote for most diseases after that mishap on New Earth with-"

"Doctor." River sighed, using _the tone,_ which immediately stopped him mid-speech.

"Right, sorry, rambling. Anyway, I've ruled out the possibility of it being a distraction, which means whoever did this either wanted to mess with our heads to make us weaker, or wanted to teach us a lesson."

"Great, that makes us feel so much better!" Amy sighed as well, suddenly causing the Doctor to realise how much River took after her. "Now, what can we do to fix it?"

"Ah, that's a little trickier." He winced, moving to adjust the zig-zag plotter. "You see, I don't believe I've ever seen this before, even though the whole thing does seem familiar. You know, I _have_ heard stories about a body-swapping machine being invented on the planet Shallacatop in the 52nd century, maybe we could ask around?" He patted his cheek with the sonic, deep in thought.

"Wow, you look really pretty when you're being clever." Rory remarked absentmindedly, only to come to his senses after everyone turned to share incredulously at him. "I mean... Amy! Amy's body looks pretty. When she's being clever. You know..." He trailed off when their stares didn't waver. "Sorry, that was weird. I didn't mean to say that out loud."

"Its fine." A smile crept up Amy's face as she moved to bump her borrowed shoulder into her husband's. "You're pretty handsome too, stupid face."

"Technically, it's _your_ stupid face now." Rory smirked back. "And how would you know if I look handsome right now?"

"Please, all I'd have to do is get a mirror. And I don't care who has it, this stupid face will always be yours." Amy smiled wider as she took her husband's hand, not caring that it was the Doctor's for once. Speaking of whom, he couldn't mask the look of disgust on his face as River turned to him, wide-eyed.

"You'd better fix this, and fast." She hissed, fighting the urge to cover her eyes. "I don't know if I can take much more of seeing you and Rory flirt with each other."

"I know, it's really weird." The Doctor cringed back, pressing a few more random console buttons. "But I don't know what else I can do, except... wait a minute..."

River, for once, fell silent when she recognised the thinking face her future husband makes right before he has an epiphany; she wanted this fixed quickly, and interrupting his thinking time with banter would be sure to slow things down. Luckily, she didn't have long to wait, as realisation was slowly spreading across her mother's features.

"I've got it!" He exclaimed, immediately leaping round the console in excitement. "We've been thinking about this in simplified terms, such as body-swapping, but if we take into account the literal description, this whole situation is technically known as soul displacement. Which means, we can use..."

"The paradox method!" River exclaimed in realisation, turning so she was looking right into her mother's gleeful face. "That's really rather clever, even for you."

There was a beat of silence as they both grinned at each other.

"Doctor Song, you've got your ' _normal_ ' face on again." The Doctor smirked, pointing at said face with the sonic playfully.

"Shut up!" River laughed back, but she didn't take it any further; she would've felt strange flirting with someone who looked like her mother. Luckily, the Doctor was saved from replying by a loud alarm flashing on the console screen.

"What's that?" The alarm had brought Amy and Rory's attention back to the matter at hand.

"Its a distress call." The Doctor replied in confusion. "From another TARDIS! Surely that's not a coincidence, right as we need it."

"Another TARDIS?" Rory asked, just as confused. "I thought you said this was the last one."

"It is." The Doctor replied, though he seemed uncertain. "It must be coming from myself in the past."

"Oh, finally!" Amy grinned in excitement. "I was wondering when we'd bump into one of your previous regenerations."

"You were?" The Doctor turned to her incredulously. "Why?"

"Well, we've seen Mels regenerate into River." Amy shrugged. "And since you've got a time machine, we just assumed we'd meet one of your previous selves at some point."

"Alright, we've landed." River pushed a lever forwards, saving her future husband from replying as she pulled the console screen towards her. "Let's see what's out there."

"What?!" We haven't landed, have we?" The Doctor walked up to River in indignation, only for her to roll her eyes and gesture towards a certain few blue buttons. "Ugh, no! Not the boringers!"

"For the last time, they're the brakes." River snarked back. "And _you_ always..." She suddenly broke off in surprise when she saw the display on the scanner.

" _Four_ other TARDISes?!" Rory exclaimed in shock.

"Ah, yes." The Doctor winced, scratching his head. "That's the trouble with sending a distress call to the future, you don't know which future is going to hear it."

He stopped when he realised only River was following. Trying to smile, he clapped his hands together.

"Right, here's the plan." He began, his mind trying to filter out the more complicated stuff so that the Ponds could understand. "Since I'm the last regeneration, there'll only be past versions of me out there. That means we won't have to try _too_ hard with the acting, as long as we're quick."

"Wait, what do you mean, acting?" Rory narrowed his eyes, having a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't like the answer.

"Well, in order for the paradox method to work, we can't let onto everyone that we've switched bodies." The Doctor winced back. "But don't worry, it'll only take half an hour, tops. And I'm 90% sure this will work."

"That's more than usual." Amy remarked, looking faintly impressed. "All right then, I'll do it. I trust you, raggedy man."

"Uh, are you serious?" Rory looked between the two of them, suddenly having the impression that he was the only sane person in the room. But then again, he had that impression most days.

"If there was another way, I would tell you." River placed a reassuring hand on her father's borrowed shoulder. "Unfortunately, in this case I don't think there is."

"Right then!" The Doctor smiled, rubbing his hands together in anticipation as he rushed over to the doors. "Come along, Ponds."

"I'm sure you'll be fine." Amy reassured her husband as they followed. "How hard can it be?"

"That's easy for you to say." Rory grumbled as his wife's body reached for the door handle. "You're not the one who has to act like the Doctor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying the story so far, please leave a comment! They really help to motivate me :)


	4. Chapter 4

"-don't think you should be in the room when she wakes up."

"Why not? She's got to come to grips with this eventually, why not immediately?"

"You keep forgetting, humans need time to process these things. Do _you_ want to be the one to reassure her when she starts panicking in a second? Because if so, be my guest."

"...no, no, you can do it. I'll just be in the console room. You know, once the panicking is over."

"Thought so."

Bill was awoken by the sound of a door closing, though she'd recognised the distinctly male and female voices arguing right next to her a second ago; she could only assume that the person they were talking about was her, so her half-asleep mind immediately decided not to panic about whatever had happened, just to prove them wrong.

She stirred, just to let the person next to her know she was waking up; she knew it'd worked, because she felt whoever it was immediately lean closer. Suddenly, a headache started pounding through her temples, causing her to wince. It was almost as though she'd been knocked out, even though she distinctly remembered falling asleep in her apartment last night.

"Bill! Bill, are you alright?" She heard the voice like it was coming from the other end of a very long tunnel, but she still recognised it.

"Nardole?" She breathed, the ringing in her ears obscuring her voice for the moment. She began to rub her fingers against her temples, still wincing. "How... did you get in my room?"

"Ah. Er..." Nardole began nervously. Her eyes were still closed, but she could still hear him fidget in his seat. "We aren't exactly... in your room."

"What?" For the first time that morning, she sat up and forced her eyes open; they were in the TARDIS's med bay, and Nardole was sitting in a chair next to the bed she was in, looking extremely nervous. "What, did I pass out in my sleep or something?"

"No, not exactly." He swallowed, refusing to look her in the eyes. "Look, Bill, don't panic, but..."

"Nardole, what's happened?" The ringing in her ears finally began to fade, which caused the change in her voice to become immediately evident. Her eyes widened as she grabbed at her throat. "What've you done to my voice?"

"Bill, if you'd just let me explain..." Nardole pleaded as Bill lifted her arm to nervously run a hand through her hair, but instead of hitting her comforting curls, her hand passed through thin air. Nardole winced as Bill quickly began groping at her head with both hands, where she was shocked to feel much shorter hair that seemed to be straighter than she was used to.

"Nardole, did you shave my head?!" She turned to stare at him in betrayal. "Becuse if you shaved my head, I swear, I'm going to..."

"No, no one shaved your head!" Nardole jumped in, quick to reassure her. "I swear, no one's even touched your hair. I mean, it's not technically _your_ hair right now, but I can promise that the hair you're talking about is completely fine."

" _Right_." Bill stretched out the word, sure that Nardole wouldn't lie to her, but not so sure what he meant; however, it all became much clearer when she lowered her hands to her eyeline. Immediately, it struck her how large they were; they looked very worn down, but precise all the same. What scared her was that she knew those hands; she'd seen them the day before as they'd piloted the TARDIS to Mars. Immediately, she blanched, scrambling out from under the covers and only just managing to string a sentence together. "W-what's happened to me?!"

"Bill, please, don't panic..." Nardole had stood up as well, and was holding up his hands as though trying to pacify her.

"How can I not panic, Nardole?!" She hissed, everything seeming to hit her at once; the familiarity of the baritone voice and the Scottish accent that seemed to be escaping her vocal chords, the sudden gain in height that caused her to stumble and grab the bed post for support, and the velvet coat she was wearing that she knew didn't belong to her. Immediately, her head began to spin at the implications. "Oh my gosh. I'm him, aren't I?" She raised a hand to run through her new short hair again. "How did this happen?!"

"We don't know!" Nardole replied despairingly. "But I swear, the Doctor will sort this out, he takes his duty very seriously."

Bill said nothing, still running both hands frantically through her new short hair in a panic. Finally, she stumbled over to the mirror hung on the back of the door, and felt her jaw drop as she took in the wide eyes of her tutor staring back at her.

"This is not good." She muttered, all too aware of the new way in which her mouth wrapped itself around the words. "This is not good at all." Slowly, she turned around to face Nardole, trying not to notice how much shorter he seemed now. "What am I supposed to do?! I can't live life as the Doctor. I can't give his lectures!"

"Oh, don't worry about that." Nardole immediately reassured her. "We'll think of an excuse. Obviously, the more pressing matter is getting you two back to your own bodies."

"Right." Bill sighed, trying to calm herself as she pinched the bridge of her new nose. This didn't last long, however, as her sudden notice of the plural aspect of Nardole's words finally registered, which caused her head to shoot up again. "Wait a second. If I'm him, does that mean he's..."

"Don't worry!" Nardole held up his hands again, taking in the mortified expression on Bill's borrowed face. "His duty of care stops him from damaging your body in any way. I swear you'll get it back exactly how you left it."

"That's... not what I'm worried about." Bill sighed again, wondering how weird it'd be to see her body acting like the Doctor. "Oh my god. Did he wake up in my apartment? That's so embarrassing."

"You, ah, didn't sleep in your apartment last night, actually." Nardole winced. "Well, you did, but the Doctor was a bit worried about your health after the exposure to the atmosphere on Mars yesterday, so... he, er, brought you in for a check up."

"While I was sleeping?" Bill asked incredulously, the question coming out a lot harsher with the Scottish accent than she'd intended. She cleared her throat, still not used to her new voice, before continuing. "You realise he could've just asked me, right?"

"You were asleep already, and he didn't want to wake you." Nardole answered softly. "He was obviously going to drop you back before you woke up, but the body swap thing happened before he could."

"So you saw it happen?" Bill asked, looking down to stare at her hands again. They were shaking slightly, as though itching to grab hold of a guitar.

"Well, no." Nardole admitted begrudgingly. "I was in the vault delivering food to Missy when it happened. It was quite funny, when I came back I saw what looked like you trying to carry the Doctor, and once he explained that it was actually the other way round, I helped him bring you here."

"Right. Okay." Bill nodded, the clarification suddenly activating her curiosity. This managed to put her discomfort on hold temporarily, as she immediately recognised her need for more information. "What's the Doctor doing to try and fix this? Where is he?"

"Are you sure you're calm now?" Nardole asked carefully. "Has everything been absorbed properly? Because your tutor has the impression that I'll only let you out once you've stopped panicking."

"Yeah, I know, I heard you talking as I was waking up." Bill recalled, a shadow of a smile passing over her face. She noticed it was harder to do than usual; this face was probably just used to glaring all the time. "The funny thing is, I wanted to stay calm specifically to prove you wrong. I guess that didn't work out."

"... _Alright_." Nardole conceded after seeing the somewhat pleasant expression on the face he was trying so hard to see Bill through. "He's in the console room. Try not to be too weirded out when you see him, though."

"No promises." This time, Bill tried to mimic the wide grin she liked to use specifically around Nardole, but she was sure it came out more creepy than comedic, judging by the lingering stare she got in return. "Sorry. This is weird." She sighed, her smile dropping as she absentmindedly rubbed one of her velvet sleeves, the coat feeling very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"It's fine, Bill." Nardole moved to open the door for her. "I'd imagine it's more weird for you than for me."

"You're probably right there." She laughed a little, but frowned slightly after hearing how deep it came out.

Walking down the corridors as the Doctor, she noticed, was entirely different from walking down them as herself. They seemed much smaller suddenly, and much more homely; she was just getting over that strange feeling when she entered the console room and experienced an even stranger one. Her own body was standing at the console, its back to them, and pushing some random buttons frantically like the Doctor always does.

"Here you are, sir." Nardole strolled in from behind her. "And rest assured, all the panicking has been dealt with. You're welcome."

At the sound of his voice, the Doctor immediately stiffened halfway through flipping a lever. Slowly, he turned round, cautiously looking his student in the eyes.

"Bill." He greeted shortly, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other. Facial cues was not one of his strong points, especially when it was his own face he was trying to read.

"Doctor." She replied, slightly amused when she realised his dilemma. She looked him up and down; he hadn't touched her hair or her make-up, which she was thankful for, and she noticed he'd donned the exact ensemble she'd worn when she'd first met Heather, denim jacket and all.

"I wasn't sure what to wear." He confessed quietly, noticing how Bill's eyes had lingered on the clothes he was wearing. "I found this in your wardrobe, I hope it's alright."

"It's fine." Bill forced the face she was wearing to produce one of its rare genuine smiles. She was touched by her tutor's concern; she didn't think her appearance would matter that much to him in the grand scheme of events. "Thanks for trying."

He nods, the expression on his suddenly youthful face quite guarded, but Bill thought she could detect a small sense of relief underneath it. Though, why the Doctor was so concerned about her clothing was conpletely beyond her. Speaking of, he'd probably seen the look of confusion on his own face, as he shook himself and began pressing buttons again.

"Right." He muttered, pulling the screen towards him. "Right. That doesn't help at all. Sorry dear." He patted the console, causing Bill to roll her eyes.

"Doctor, can you stop talking to your kitchen for a second and tell me what the hell is going on?" Bill's new face naturally settled into a glare, the question again coming out harsher than she'd intended. Slowly, she took a deep breath, and tried to use a softer tone. "How this happened, for a start. Who did this?"

"Didn't Nardole explain?" He turned to his assistant, his tired tone clearly conveying how he would rather do anything else at that moment other than provide exposition.

"Well, not much, no!" Nardole rolled his eyes. "You said you didn't want to deal with her panicking, not her questioning. Maybe if you'd specified, I would've been able to keep her back there longer."

"You are _useless_." The Doctor insulted him half-heartedly, forcibly pressing the same button over and over. "What with your stupid, dense pudding brain, I don't know how you've managed to stay alive this long." He moved to the other side of the console just to press one button, only to move back again. "A can of spam would make a better assistant than you."

"Doctor." Bill cut in, feeling sorry for her friend. "You probably shouldn't take out your anger on-"

"Don't worry Bill, it's fine." Nardole patted her velvet sleeve. "He likes to insult me when he's stressed, it really calms him down. That way he thinks of a plan faster."

"I _can_ hear you, you know." The Doctor cut in, even though he had his back to them.

"Oh, I know." Nardole replied smugly. "Now, answer her question. Do you know who did this?"

"Short answer, no." The Doctor rubbed a hand over his borrowed face as he flipped a couple of levers. "Long answer, I was in the console room when it happened, and I only managed to notice the TARDIS being drained of power before losing consciousness. I think my head hit the console on the way down, sorry about that."

"Yeah, thanks." Bill sighed, rubbing her temples where the headache had originated from after waking up. She was glad it'd stopped hurting after a couple of minutes.

"Anyway, while I technically don't know who or what has done this, there's only a few things in the universe that can drain power from the TARDIS, so that narrows it down." He concluded, looking glad he could sum it up quickly. "Any questions? No? Good."

"Uh, I actually do have a question." Bill filled the resulting silence, a confused expression on her lined features.

"Of course you do." The Doctor muttered under his breath. He normally loved the inquisitive nature of his student, but it was coming back to bite him right when he needed to focus.

"Come on, you're telling me that someone drained the TARDIS to freaky friday us in the middle of the night, and you only have a vague idea of who it could be?" Bill snorted derisively. "At least tell me you have a solution."

"Yeah, about that." The Doctor could no longer stop the annoyance from sleeping into his tone. He was trying very hard not to be blunt, as he'd learned from Clara's record cards; if only he could remember how she'd drafted them, or what she looked like at all. "I... don't have a solution yet."

Immediately, he backtracked after seeing Bill's look on his face. "I mean, I will have soon. I always wait till the last second, then I pull something out of nowhere and save the planet and/or universe. It's what I do."

"Don't I know it." Bill muttered, even though she was still slightly reassured. "Still, surely you'll think of something soon. You're clever like that."

"And do you know what'd _really_ help?" The Doctor gritted his teeth as he used his sonic to scan both of them. "If you'd stop asking questions and diverting my thought process."

"Right, sorry." Bill held up her hands in mock surrender, only just catching the time on the watch the Doctor wore. "Hey, it's almost time for your lecture!"

"You're _not_ doing my lecture." The Doctor scoffed back. Bill hadn't intended to protest until she heard the tone he'd used, which caused her new features to settle into a familiar frown.

"Hey, I could do lectures, you don't know!" She jumped up the stairs to the higher level, mimicking her tutor's own movements whenever he climbed the stairs himself. "Look: Good morning class, today we're going to learn about Charles Dickens." She smirked as she tried to copy his professor voice, which actually caused him to turn and glare at her. "More specifically, _A Christmas Carol_ , which discusses classism, the futility of love..." She lowered her voice to add dramatic flair, "And the certainty of death."

"I sound nothing like that." The Doctor shook his head disdainfully, pointedly ignoring the thumbs-up Nardole was sending his student. "...Have you actually read _A Christmas Carol_?"

"No, I got that from a web-show." Bill grinned cheekily, jumping down the stairs again. "And I must sound like you, I've got your voice."

"But not the knowledge, clearly." He muttered, checking the readings on the screen again. "I'm glad _you're_ enjoying this, at least. I'll never know how you humans function with one heart, it is completely pitiful."

"Right, if you're just going to start complaining, I'm going back to the vault." Nardole announced. "Can you do the lift thing? I was having quite an interesting conversation with Missy."

"I don't even want to know." The Doctor rolled his eyes, flipping a lever. "Don't be long, I'm getting close."

"I'll take however long I like, thank you." Nardole snarked back, exiting the TARDIS.

Bill heard the door open and close, but she was lost in thought; what the Doctor had said about her one heart had immediately peaked her curiosity. Slowly, she raised an aged hand to her chest, only to feel the origin of a double heartbeat that was coursing around her new body.

"Woah." She murmured, wonder in her borrowed grey eyes. "You really do have two hearts."

"That is the idea, yes." The Doctor replied sassily, looking up. This snapped Bill out of her trance, and she met eyes with her own body across the room; while it was extremely weird to see herself being piloted by someone else, the look in her eyes was so clearly the Doctor that Bill almost blinked in surprise. Though he was trying to keep his expression blank, she knew her own face, and she could see longing, guilt and fear in the eyes that'd belonged to her only a couple hours ago.

Unfortunately, the moment was broken when a loud, drawn-out cackle made itself heard through the door that Nardole had left ajar.

"Oh, I've got to see this!" A distinct female voice drifted towards them, slowly becoming louder. 

"No, no, no..." The Doctor muttered, and he only had time to stand protectively in front of his student before the door opened.

Missy strolled in, twirling her umbrella, hand on her hip like she owned the place. She took one look at Bill's body, stiff, in a shielding stance, with millennia of experience behind the eyes, and the Doctor's body, slightly hunched, with an innocently fearful/confused expression on his features, and she cackled again. Nardole was in her wake, looking extremely sheepish.

"Oh my, this is too good!" She slowly stalked towards them, still studying them intently with a smirk on her face. "No, not good, _hilarious_."

"Oh, shut up." The Doctor rolled his eyes, continuing with his button pushing after realising Missy didn't mean them any harm at this particular moment. "Thanks, Nardole. What a great idea, informing the prisoner of our situation. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Shut it." Nardole shot back, a grumpy look on his face.

"I'm sorry, are you talking to me, or the you from a minute ago?" The Doctor glared back, though it seemed to be less effective without the attack eyebrows.

"So irritable." Missy smirked seductively, sauntering over to her childhood friend who was suddenly much closer to her eyeline. "Tell me, is it fun being a human? And before you answer, at least you're aware of yourself this time. Hiding from the Family of Blood with a Chameleon Arch couldn't have been an easy decision."

"Wait, how do you know about-"

"And you." Missy turned to Bill, who managed to resist the urge to step backwards under Missy's intense scrutiny. "How's the upgrade? Glad you're no longer obligated to be the comic relief? I know I would be."

"No." Bill replied simply, but the Doctor's deep voice added a lot more gravitas than she'd intended. "This is temporary. The Doctor's _this_ close to finding the solution."

"Oh, darling!" She smirked wider as she spun on the spot to face the Doctor again. "You haven't worked out how to fix this yet? Human biology clearly doesn't suit you."

" _You_ know?" The Doctor looked up to stare at her in disbelief. Suddenly, an alarm sounded, and the console lights immediately started flashing red; Bill and Nardole jumped in surprise, but the Doctor's new brown eyes never left Missy's face.

"Oh, honey, even your previous selves figured it out before you did." Missy stepped closer, just so she could whisper two words dramatically right in his face. " _Soul displacement._ "

"Oh. OH." The Doctor's eyes grew wide as he looked between Missy and the screen in quick succession.

"And _now_ he's got it." Missy rolled her eyes as her friend moved around the console frantically, pushing buttons again. "Honestly, do I have to do everything round here?"

"Wait, are you talking about the..." Nardole trailed off, eyes wide. "Wow. Isn't that dangerous?"

"Not if you know how to do it." The Doctor smirked in reply as he flicked a lever, which landed the TARDIS at its destination. "And trust me, I've done this several times before." He rushed past the screen, only just taking notice of the four other TARDISes outside. "I _knew_ this situation felt familiar."

"Okay, can someone tell me what the hell is going on?!" Bill finally cut in, annoyed at the vague explanations that everyone seemed to understand except her. The Doctor rolled his eyes as he speed-walked over to the doors.

"Nardole, explain." He ordered, raising a hand towards the door. "I'll handle this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support! If you enjoyed reading, please leave a comment, they really help to motivate me :D


	5. Chapter 5

"Doc! We're back!"

Graham and Yaz burst through the door of Ryan's apartment, carrying a large array of shopping bags between them. They passed Ryan, who was in the middle of an intense Call of Duty game on his Xbox, and dumped all of their groceries on the kitchen island.

"She didn't hear us, did she?" Yaz smiled endearingly, gazing at the TARDIS which had landed right in the middle of Ryan's living room. Its door was slightly ajar, and Yaz could see her alien friend half underneath the console trying to make some repairs. "Doctor! Do you want to help us load this lot onto the TARDIS?"

There was no reply. Yaz rolled her eyes.

"Nah, here's how you do it." Graham smirked, turning his back on the TARDIS and reaching inside one of the shopping bags. "Doc! We've got custard creams!"

Immediately, there was a bang, a crash, and what sounded like a scuffle before rapid footsteps could be heard getting closer.

"You have?!" The Doctor exclaimed in glee as she pulled the door fully open, only to trip right out due to her enthusiasm. "Whoops. Last time that happened, I got stranded and had to live with Craig." She stood up, not noticing her friends' confused expressions over her ramblings, and grabbed the handle of the TARDIS door as though she still expected it to disappear. "What's this I hear about a certain biscuit?"

"Only after you help us load this stuff into the kitchen." Graham shook the yellow packet under her nose.

"Fine." The Doctor pouted, picking up four bags at once and threading them onto her arms. "Honestly, you meet 2 godlike beings intent on stealing the nightmares of humanity, and what's the first thing you think of doing afterwards? Oh, I know, I'll stock up the kitchen!"

"I dunno, the finger thing was really creepy." Yaz screwed up her face at the memory as they traversed the corridors of the time machine. "I think we all needed to do something normal after that. Especially Ryan, I don't think he'll be leaving that sofa anytime soon."

"I think the whole concept of being normal has popped its clogs at this point." Graham remarked as they entered the kitchen and began putting the food away. "Ever since we decided to travel in a time machine with an alien, I think we collectively decided to leave our normal lives in the past."

"I guess you're right." Yaz laughed before turning to the Doctor, who was unusually silent. "I guess we _aren't_ normal any more, but I definitely wouldn't have it any other way." She smiled at the blonde, who hesitantly returned it.

"I'm glad." The Doctor was clearly trying her best to look cheery, but the conflict in her eyes gave her away. Eventually, all the food was in its correct places, and the Doctor stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, hands in her pockets. Yaz was just about to ask if she was alright (and maybe offer her a custard cream) when an alarm sounded and the ceiling lights flashed red; immediately, the question she was about to ask changed on the journey from her brain to her lips.

"Doctor, what's that alarm?" But as soon as Yaz turned to her friend, she was already hurrying out the door. Rolling her eyes, she followed, hearing Graham's sigh as though she was still right next to him.

"Honestly, again with the running?" He grumbled as he shuffled behind his grandson's childhood friend. "We've got a time machine. The alarm's still going to be there if we're a couple seconds slower."

Yaz paid no attention, bursting into the control room which looked positively terrifying in the flashing red lights; what terrified her the most, however, was the wide-eyed look of shock on the Doctor's face as she stared at the circular symbols on the screen.

"Get Ryan." She demanded, her eyes never leaving the screen. "Now."

Yaz gulped; the urgency of the Doctor's tone leaving no room for arguments, she rushed towards the doors, almost tripping out of them in her rush. Graham right behind her, she advanced on Ryan's sofa, full-on panicking as she jumped in front of the TV screen.

"Ryan, come quick." She grabbed his shoulder, willing him to stand up. "Something's wrong."

"What?" What's happened?" It was a true testament to Ryan's character when he jumped up immediately, not even stopping to pause the game. "What's she done?"

"We don't know!" Yaz wished she could give him a better answer as they rushed back towards the TARDIS, Graham now in the lead. However, just as they reached the doors, the Doctor called out to them.

"Wait! Don't come any clos-"

But before she could finish, the lights around the console dulled, and before Yaz knew it, her friend had fallen to the ground, seemingly unconscious. Graham had also dropped, having only just managed to step onto the TARDIS; Yaz froze for a second just outside the doors, staring at her friends slumped on the floor, horrified.

"Grandad!" Ryan exclaimed in shock, immediately pushing past Yaz to lean over Graham worriedly. This seemed to bring her back to her senses, as she immediately rushed over to check on the Doctor.

She hoped she was alright.

* * *

Graham came to slowly, tiredly bringing up a hand to rub over his forehead. He realised he was lying on the floor, which was just _great_ ; his back would surely protest when he properly came to his senses and sat up. However, probably because the universe was finally taking pity on him, he felt very little pain from the sudden drop to the floor. Small mercies.

"-ctor? Doctor! Ryan, she's waking up!"

Graham became dimly aware of the panicked exclamations above him, and vaguely realised he should be paying attention; slowly, his eyes blinked open, and took in Yaz's worried face next to the underside of the console. But hadn't he just been over by the doors?

"Doctor, what was that?" Yaz asked in confusion, crouching down next to him. "Are you alright?"

When the Doctor didn't answer right away, Graham sat up; maybe a little too fast, as a sudden dizzy spell caused him to hold a palm to the side of his head. Immediately, a blonde curtain of hair made itself apparent near his right eye, which caused him to double-take; how long had he been unconscious?

"I'm fine." A voice sounded from near the doors that Graham recognised, but immediately doubted. It was impossible. And yet... "Hold on. Did I regenerate again? But I only just got this upgrade-"

Graham watched himself sit up across the room, completely dumbfounded.

"Oh." His clone stopped in realisation when their eyes met, and tilted his head to the side. "Now _that's_ creepy."

Graham could do nothing but stare back. They stayed like this for a second or two, just looking at each other, before his clone scrunched up his face and jumped to his feet.

"Right. _Right_. I don't think this has happened before." Graham watched in amusement as his clone winced after standing, as though it had also taken his joint pains. "Let's look at the facts. It drained the TARDIS, knocked us unconscious..."

Graham stared as their ramblings became mutterings, and his clone paced back and forth, seemingly deep in thought. It's funny, Graham thought, but the mannerisms reminded him of...

He looked down at himself. Small, pale hands protruded from grey coat sleeves. _No_. Striking blue trousers held up too high by neon yellow braces. _No._ Worn brown boots and an obnoxious maroon shirt with a rainbow stripe across the middle. _No, no, no!_

 _'This cannot be happening.'_ Graham found himself thinking, raising those small, pale hands to his head and feeling the blonde, shoulder length hair that was indeed attached there. _'This isn't even possible.'_

"Oh, whoops, er..." The Doctor, because the mannerisms and the speech pattern was so clearly the Doctor's, immediately rushed to his side. In his panic, Graham realised he'd voiced some of his thoughts out loud, and all while using his alien friend's higher-pitched voice. He cleared his throat, just to hear it again, and gulped. "Sorry about this. I'll... I'll try to fix it as soon as possible."

The Doctor made to put a hand on her own shoulder, but due to her social awkwardness, it hovered just above for a few seconds before she hastily removed it and made her way back to the console. It was at that moment when Ryan spoke up, which slightly startled Graham; he'd completely forgotten that him and Yaz were still in the room.

"Uh, Graham, you probably shouldn't-"

"Ryan." Yaz held up her arm as she scrutinised the Doctor deeply, her eyes narrowed. "...I don't think that's Graham."

"Oh, five points to Yaz, brilliant as always!" The Doctor beamed. It looked painfully innocent on Graham's face. "No wonder you became a police officer. Don't want to waste a mind like yours."

"But that's..." Ryan's eyes suddenly turned wide as saucers as he looked between his grandfather and the Doctor. "No. Way."

"Oh, right, sorry, should've caught you two up." The Doctor bounded over to them, a sheepish smile adorning Graham's features. The real Graham winced; surely she realised her energy wouldn't last long in his body? "Yes, we've been mind-swapped. It must've happened when the TARDIS was drained."

"The TARDIS was drained?" Yaz repeated, feeling out of her depth as she tried to see her alien friend through Graham's exterior. "No, wait, better question. How come me and Ryan weren't mind-swapped as well? We were standing right next to you. Graham, I mean."

"That _is_ a good question." The Doctor hummed thoughtfully as she leant on the console. "Where _exactly_ were you standing?"

"Well, we were all rushing back to the TARDIS because of the alarm, but you told us not to come any closer." Yaz recounted. "Well, you almost did. Graham was..." She stopped, her eyes immediately widening. "Graham was already halfway through the door."

"I knew it!" The Doctor exclaimed, rushing round the console and pressing buttons. "Whatever did this only has the power to do it inside the TARDIS. It's not based on proximity! Oh, that's interesting, don't you think?"

"Er, _hello_?!" Graham piped up finally, wincing again at the change in his voice. Slowly, he pulled himself up into standing position, leaning on the console slightly due to his different centre of gravity. "Interesting? You know what, sure. You can say it's interesting, Doc, as long as you know how to fix this. Like, _right now._ "

"This is proper weird." Ryan stared at Graham with wide eyes. "It's so strange seeing the Doc talk like you."

"Well, Graham, that's where the alarm comes in!" The Doctor saved him from replying as she moved the screen round to face them. "This is just a little case of soul displacement. Nothing a small paradox won't fix!"

"Right, but what's all that meant to _mean_?" Graham asked, gesturing at the symbols on the screen. "It just looks like a load of circles to me."

" _That_ is Gallifreyan." The Doctor grinned, a hint of pride in her tone. "My home language. This is, at its bare essentials, a distress call. From another TARDIS. And we all know a distress call is practically my theme song."

"Another TARDIS? There are more of...?" Ryan trailed off in confusion, until his face suddenly darkened. "Are you telling us this is from the Master?"

"No! Definitely not." The Doctor reassured them quickly. Graham was glad; he definitely didn't want to face the self-proclaimed 'O' in this state. "This is from a past version of my own TARDIS. From the style, I'd say around... 2005? Looks like you're about to meet one of my past faces."

"I'm sorry, your past whats?!" Graham asked, extremely confused. "Can you shapeshift or something?"

"Kind of, not by choice though." The Doctor clarified, smiling widely. "Remember I said I used to be a white-haired scotsman?"

"Well we didn't think you were serious!!" Graham waved his hands around in indignation, his voice reaching highs he never thought it could. "You'd just fallen through the roof of a train, and were about to say you were an alien. Sorry if I wasn't inclined to believe _everything_ you said at that moment."

"Right." The Doctor winced, rushing round the console like she always did. Ryan and Yaz looked on in bemusement. "Let's just say, every time a Time Lord dies, their body heals itself completely, turning them into a new person. It's called regeneration, and the me you're about to meet was around, let's see, 4 faces ago...?"

"You've changed your face 4 times?!" Yaz exclaimed incredulously. "And you say you do it every time you die? How old even _are_ you at this point?"

"I mean, if you want to talk technicalities, I've had 14 different faces. Even though I've gone through the process 14 times, there was one point where I had slight vanity issues, but that's missing the point." The Doctor rambled, flicking a random switch back and forth so she wouldn't have to meet anyone's eyes. "And I'm pretty sure I'm nearing 2000 at this point. Give or take a mental age of 4 billion."

"...Okay, I'm not even going to touch that." Yaz blinked, her shocked expression mirrored on Ryan and Graham's features as well. "You've had 14 faces?! Do you even know which one we're about to meet?"

"Well, judging by the time period, my ninth face, even though it's technically my tenth." The Doctor winced again, remembering the darkness of that period. "You probably won't like him at first, he was rude without realising it most of the time. Just don't judge him too harshly."

Yaz was just about to make a comment like _'how can we judge him too harshly if he's a version of you',_ when she was cut short.

"He?" Ryan asked curiously. "Were all your previous bodies men?"

"Oh yes." The Doctor nodded, smiling as she reminisced. "Even though us Time Lords are way above your petty obsession with gender, this is the first time I've been a woman. It's quite exciting! I'm enjoying it." She stopped short, staring at Graham. "Or, at least I _was_."

"Right." Graham cleared his throat, shifting in place awkwardly. "Not that I don't enjoy hearing about your alien biology that you've neglected to mention so far, but how is responding to a distress call from your past self going to help us with this?"

"Well, it's the paradox method." She winked knowingly, as though that explained everything. After realising that she was facing three identical confused expressions, she sighed before explaining further. "Back on Gallifrey, there was a legend about two friends who woke up one day to find that their souls'd been displaced. Apparently, they spent a year living as each other before encountering a paradox, which switched them back to normal after around an hour."

"Okay." Yaz just about grasped the concept. "So, we meet your past self, explain our situation, help him get out of whatever trouble he's in, then after an hour everything'll be back to normal?"

" _Well_..." The Doctor scrunched up her face, which looked extremely out of place in Graham's body. "If we tell him what's happened, there won't be a paradox _to_ encounter. We'll just tell him we're only there to help him, and have to act normal."

"You're kidding?!" Graham exclaimed, aghast, looking down at himself in horror. "I can't act like you!"

"You know what, you might not have to." The Doctor pondered, a thoughtful expression on her borrowed features. "Yes! He'll be expecting a man anyway. We'll just say _I'm_ the Doctor, and that you're part of the fam!"

"That'd be so weird." Ryan chuckled, staring intently at Graham. "I can't see you as anything other than the leader."

"Well, looks like you'll have to!" The Doctor rushed round the console again, but Graham couldn't help noticing that her breathing was becoming slightly more laboured. "How about Joh- no, not John. Stupid gendered names. Jane? Jane Sm- no, he knows Smith is our alias. Jane Sinclair, maybe? You could say you're Ryan's... cousin."

"Whatever." Graham couldn't suppress the uncomfortable expression that drifted across his suddenly younger features, noticing it on his grandson's face as well. He settled on a glare to cover it. "Let's just get this over with."

"Ew, stop doing that with my face!" The Doctor flinched after seeing his negative expression. "I don't like it."

"Doctor, I think this is the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life, and yesterday I had a detachable finger in my ear that was eating my nightmares." Yaz cut in, looking between the three of them with a strange look on her face. " _Please_ concentrate."

"Right, sorry." The Doctor grinned sheepishly before turning back to the console. However, she caught Graham's reflection on the screen, and froze. "Wait. He knows my dress sense by now." She whipped round, scrutinizing her own body. "Graham, let's swap jackets. Maybe that'll look more inconspicuous?"

Graham eyed his friend suspiciously before conplying; he shrugged off the Doctor's signature grey jacket, feeling incredibly uncomfortable in her rainbow shirt and yellow suspenders. He handed it over, as his friend handed him his own jacket in return. To the Doctor's relief, the rainbow-lined jacket still fit her, even though the sleeves were a little short and the back wasn't as long and flappy as she was used to. In fact, she noted with a smile, the bright blue t-shirt Graham had worn underneath his jacket matched her style nicely.

"Uh, Doc? I don't think this was a good idea." The sound of her own voice brought her out of her reverie, and she turned to see her body practically swimming in Graham's jacket. His hands were completely covered by the sleeves, it hung limply around his new thin frame, and the end reached well past his waist. She would've been amused at the sight if Graham's expression hadn't looked so lost and confused.

"Oh, whoops." She rushed forwards and reached out to comfort him, only for her arm to freeze awkwardly halfway there. "Sorry Graham. Why don't you go to the wardrobe and see if anything fits you in there?"

"Fine." He grumbled, taking off his jacket and flinging it over the seat as he walked past. Yaz watched as the Doctor's body shuffled awkwardly down the hallway, before turning to what she knew was the real Doctor.

"So, what actually caused this?" Yaz asked her curiously, eyeing the coat that looked positively ridiculous on Graham's body. "Did the TARDIS malfunction? Is this a side effect or something?"

"The TARDIS never malfunctions." The Doctor scoffed back. "But it _was_ drained, and not many things are able to do something like that. Woah, I just got a strange sense of deja-vu, did anyone else feel that?"

"I should hope not." Ryan shivered, trying not to think about what would've happened if _he'd_ been on board when the TARDIS was drained. "Aren't you going to answer the distress call? I want to see this past version of you!"

"I have to warn you, my ears were massive." She chuckled in return as she began fiddling with the console. "And I thought it'd be polite to wait for Graham, since I can land at the exact point in time the call was made whenever I like. But sure, if you're impatient..."

She flicked many levers in rapid succession, then pulled the giant one, which both members of the fam recognised as the one that landed the TARDIS. After, she pulled the screen towards her, only to freeze in shock; Yaz and Ryan immediately looked over her shoulder, and their eyes widened at precisely the same time.

"Ugh, that's just _perfect_!" The Doctor rolled her eyes. "You send a distress call to the future, and all four of your future selves answer it. Typical." She turned to her companions, who were both looking extremely tired of all these surprises. "Okay, change of plan. You're meeting four of my past faces. They're all outside those doors."

"That's crazy!" Yaz exclaimed, her eyes still taking in the four other TARDISes on the screen. "How can there be five versions of you in one place??"

"There can't be, that's the point!" The Doctor beamed, patting Yaz's arm. "It's a paradox. Which, coincidentally, is just what we need!"

"Alright, I'm back!" The Doctor heard her own voice say from just behind them. After turning, she saw Graham standing there, wearing a dark grey hoodie over her rainbow top; he'd taken off her braces and replaced them with a sensible belt, which she noticed with distaste had made her trousers look a normal length. If it was possible, Ryan and Yaz's eyes widened even further when they saw him.

"Okay, I was wrong." Ryan looked between both body-swapped individuals in quick succession. "It _can_ get weirder. You almost look... normal."

" _Almost_?" The Doctor gestured wildly at her own body in indignation. "You look _totally_ normal! You look like normal old Jane Sinclair, active bus driver."

"Right." Graham half-smiled, shuffling closer. "What did I miss?"

"Well, we're now meeting four of the Doctor's past selves instead of just one." Yaz replied nonchalantly, nodding towards the screen.

"What?!" Graham exclaimed, aghast, as he got close enough to see for himself. "You're kidding?"

Suddenly, on the screen, the doors of two versions of the TARDIS opened at the exact same time; a party of three stepped out of each one, both looking at the others suspiciously. The Doctor froze; she hadn't seen some of those people in a very long time.

"Doctor? Are you alright?" Yaz asked softly, but the Time Lord didn't get a chance to answer.

"So, which ones are past versions of you?" Ryan questioned, interested. It took a second for her to register the question.

"Oh, uh, those two." She half-heartedly indicated one with a pinstriped suit and sandshoes, and another one with floppy hair and a bowtie.

"Huh." Yaz hummed curiously, but no one had a chance to say anything else before a third pair of doors opened, and out stepped a woman with an impressive afro wearing a denim jacket. Seeing her felt like a sudden punch in the gut to the Doctor.

 _"Bill._ " She covered her mouth in sorrow, swiftly making her way to the doors without thinking about it.

"Doctor!" Yaz called out, rushing to catch up. Ryan and Graham followed right behind them. "Can we really just walk out there?"

"Just you watch me." Her friend beamed back, but Yaz could see a familiar conflict behind her eyes. "Don't worry, just act like yourselves. We've got this."

" _Right_." Graham muttered as the doors were thrown open. What on earth had they gotten themselves into now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of these characters are definitely harder to write than others. If you enjoyed, please leave a comment, they really help to motivate me! :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay kid, this is where it gets complicated.
> 
> Unless it's clear I'm writing from a certain character's point of view, I'll be using everyone's real names rather than the bodies they've been swapped into. In case you need a reminder:
> 
> Nine -> Rose  
> Ten -> Donna  
> Donna -> Martha  
> Martha -> Ten  
> Eleven -> Amy  
> Amy -> Rory  
> Rory -> Eleven  
> Twelve <-> Bill  
> Thirteen <-> Graham

Donna thought she might just have finally topped the walking fat as the weirdest day she'd had on the TARDIS when she followed Ten and Martha outside. They were, indeed, standing in a field surrounded by four other TARDISes, one of which had also opened; she watched in awe as three people exited, one tall with a large nose, one with a tweed jacket and a bow tie, and one ginger. Donna found herself immediately warming to her, even before she spoke.

Even so, Donna eyed them all suspiciously, having a feeling that the man in the bowtie was the future Doctor. Who else would have dress sense like that? Speaking of whom, the ginger woman was whispering frantically in his ear, and he was nodding along slightly. When the silence became too deafening, Ten nudged Martha, who immediately channelled her acting talents.

"So." She began, striding forward impressively like she'd seen the Doctor do many times. "Which one of you is the future me?"

"Oh!" The man in the bowtie suddenly sprung forward after a few seconds, a sheepish look on his young face. "That'd be me, sorry." He spun on the spot and gestured towards us. "Er, Ponds, this is Martha, Donna and, as I'm sure you've guessed, my previous regeneration."

"How long's it been?" Donna found herself asking the unfamiliar face of her friend. "You still remember us?"

"Of course!" He replied, looking bewildered at the very question. She also noticed the ginger woman flinch a little, and look at Donna's own body with something akin to sadness; after noticing her looking, the future Doctor's eyes widened slightly. "Oh! Er, Martha, Donna, this is Amy and Rory Williams. They're married, and they travel with me."

"Pond!" The woman Donna now recognised to be Amy spoke up, grinning. "Amy and Rory Pond. Nice to meet you."

The future Doctor rolled his eyes. Donna sensed there was a story there, but before he could retort, another TARDIS opened; out stepped a young woman wearing a denim jacket, looking to be around university age.

"Oh." Twelve hadn't been expecting to be faced with so many people from his past all at once. "Er. Hello." He also hadn't realised how much it would hurt to look at people like Martha, who he'd neglected terribly, Donna, from whom he'd had to wipe all memory of him, and Amy and Rory, who he'd mourned extensively after the angels had taken them. He had absolutely no idea what to say next, but luckily he was saved from having to decide when some more doors opened and a grey blur jumped into his arms.

"Bill!!" The man breathed in excitement as he hugged Twelve tighter. "It's so good to see you again, you've no idea."

"Sorry." Twelve tried his best to return the hug, which was easier than he thought since he was in Bill's body, before leaning back to get a better look at this man. "Who are you?" He asked, though he already had a suspicion.

The answering beaming smile would've been proof enough, but the long grey coat lined with rainbows pretty much confirmed it.

"Oh, that's right!" Thirteen stepped back, suddenly concerned she'd crossed a line with her previous companion. "I haven't properly explained regeneration yet! Well, judging by your reaction, I haven't. You've got that to come, that was a fun conversation! Though obviously, you wouldn't know, since you haven't had it yet-"

"Alright!" Ten cut in, using Donna's voice to impose his authority; the man who was clearly his future self jumped a little, and turned to him mid-sentence. "We don't want this to get confusing, do we? How about all versions of the Doctor step forward, and we work from there?"

Thirteen smiled in nostalgia, and nodded; she'd missed the sound of her best friend bossing her around.

"Hang on, wait a minute." Eleven spoke up, staring at the man in rainbows suspiciously. Halfway through this he realised that Amy had no way of knowing the information he was about to divulge, but his curiosity soon won him over enough to ask the question. "The Doctor told us he's on his last regeneration, and that he can't do it again. So how can you be a future version of him?"

"Er, that's a bit complicated." Thirteen grimaced at what she thought was her past companion. Twelve was also biting his tongue, as he knew he hadn't been very forthcoming with Bill about this, and Ten was doing his best to refrain from mentioning that he still had two regenerations left. "Spoilers...?"

"Did someone say spoilers?" Came a familiar voice from Eleven's TARDIS. Thirteen completely froze, and could do nothing but watch in shock as one River Song stepped through the doors. Her eyes took one sweep of the crowd, and immediately honed onto the coat lined with rainbows. "Oh, hello sweetie."

"R-River..." Thirteen stuttered, feeling like her brain had short-circuited as her body still wasn't responding. Hyper aware that her fam had just stepped out the TARDIS behind her to see what was going on, she watched as though in slow motion as River glided towards her and immediately pressed their lips together.

 _"Oh my god_." Ryan immediately averted his eyes, reaching up with his hand to cover them in mortification. Yaz was frozen in shock, and Graham could do nothing but stare in horror as this strange woman snogged his own body, which he realised with even more horror was enjoying it.

Finally, River pulled away to stare lovingly at Thirteen, who was looking back at her as though she was the most beautiful sunset in the universe.

"Love the rainbows." River looked her up and down with amusement. "They really suit you."

"Right." Thirteen replied, beaming, though she couldn't help but feel that River would've been much more excited about her actual body. "Thanks."

There was a beat of silence, during which Thirteen cursed her awkwardness, before a voice broke it that seemed to be coming from behind the TARDIS doors that Twelve had left ajar.

"Alright, Nardole, I get it." Bill had already looked over photos of the Doctor's previous faces and companions multiple times, and wanted to meet the real versions instead; however, that sentiment disappeared as quickly as it'd come when she actually stepped out. "Oh, er, hello everyone! I was just talking to my... assistant here."

Nardole also exited the TARDIS behind her, rolling his eyes. Bill was just starting to draw a blank in front of all these people when she met eyes with a woman she'd only seen before in a picture frame; her borrowed eyes widened as she remembered the Doctor saying that this woman was his wife. His dead one. And _damn_ , was she prettier in person. She immediately froze in what she thought was shock, but was actually a moment she'd later dub as 'gay panic'.

"Oh, hello _again_ , sweetie." River smirked at what she could only assume was the regeneration of the Doctor after hers, looking him up and down like she'd done with Thirteen. Again, she moved forwards, fully intending to snog this version of her husband senseless as well.

As soon as their lips met, Bill's mind felt like it'd exploded. She had no idea whether to keep her position pressed against the TARDIS with her eyes wide in shock, or to reciprocate slightly to keep up the illusion that she was the Doctor. The real Doctor had facepalmed, knowing exactly what Bill's dilemma was.

Luckily, River pulled away then, leaving a traumatised Bill in her wake. Twelve smirked seeing his own body still pressed against the doors, palms facing the wood, much like his own reaction after Missy had kissed him at 3W. River grinned, glad she could still have this effect on the Doctor.

"You are _so_ doing those roots." She smirked at what she thought was Twelve, not knowing the real version was reminiscing about the first time she'd actually said those words to him. "But still, love the new look. What accent is that? Scottish? I wonder where you got that from."

Bill turned to stare at her own body in confusion, only for it to refuse to meet her eyes. Twelve chanced half a glance at what he thought was Amy, before a different red-head jumped in.

"Hang on." Ten narrowed his eyes at what he thought was his future self, searching his face intently. He glanced sideways at Donna, who was also staring at him with recognition in her eyes, and again channelled the commanding aspect of his new voice. "Aren't you the guy from-"

" _Anyway_!" Twelve interrupted, knowing Bill would find herself in an awkward position if Ten had finished his question. "Donna, didn't you say all the Doctors should step forward so there'd be less confusion?"

"Well, yeah, but..." Ten found his sentence trailing off when the denim clad woman pushed her version of the Doctor forward. He didn't even stop to wonder how the woman had known Donna's name.

"Right. Yes. Hello." Bill began awkwardly, trying to remember the information Nardole had told her inside the TARDIS. "As you may have guessed, I'm the... twelfth incarnation of the Doctor. I arrived with my friends Bill and Nardole."

She gestured towards them both, and Twelve narrowed his borrowed eyes. He would not have chosen the word 'friend' for Nardole, instead leaning more towards 'mum' or 'minion', and from the confused glint in Thirteen's eyes, she'd noticed that as well.

Luckily, she was then distracted by the rattling of the TARDIS doors behind him; he could only assume that Missy had finally realised he'd sneakily locked her in. He was extremely glad he'd had that stroke of brilliance, as he didn't feel like explaining to everyone, Martha in particular, who she was.

"What's that?" Eleven asked in concern, staring at his future TARDIS suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing!" Twelve replied dismissively, before quickly turning back to his future self. "Rainbows, you're up next."

"Right." Said Doctor shook her head slightly, breaking her sad stare at what she thought was her previous companion. A feeling of dread suddenly ignited in Twelve's stomach, wondering what'd happened to Bill to cause Thirteen to look at her like that. "Yes! Hello everyone." She stepped forward until she was standing next to the real Bill. "I'm the thirteenth Doctor. I'm pretty sure I'm the oldest one here. Oh, and I arrived with my friends Yaz, Ryan and G- er, Jane."

She indicated her companions, Ryan giving a small wave, Yaz nodding, and Graham simply smiling. Bill found herself staring for a little longer at this Jane person; why on earth was there so many pretty women around?

"Okay, I guess I'll go next." Rory felt like Eleven would've jumped in then, so he stepped forward in the jittery way he'd seen many times before. "I'm the eleventh one. Oh, and I came with Amy, Rory and River."

Eleven waved enthusiastically at everyone from Amy's body, and was proud when he received a fond smile from Thirteen. The real Amy rolled her eyes playfully.

"I guess that'd make me the tenth version." Martha piped up, strolling forward in false confidence. "And since I'm the youngest, you all know Donna and Martha."

Twelve grimaced when Bill tried desperately to make it look like she knew them. Ten, in Donna's body, seemed to be sizing up his replacements, while the real Donna was looking over at the various other companions and smiling in greeting. Twelve's hearts broke, thinking she was Martha; she'd deserved better. Both of them did.

"Er, Doctor..." Yaz piped up, intending to ask a genuine question, but was surprised slightly when four heads turned in her direction.

"Yes?" Every Doctor answered, leading to all four looking indignantly at the others.

"Er, right, sorry..." Yaz mumbled, pointing at Graham's body in that ridiculous coat. "I meant that one."

"I know you did, Yaz!" Thirteen stared, offended, at what she thought were her past regenerations. "Look, we need some way of telling each other apart. How about... _I'll_ be the Doctor, since I'm the oldest, and you lot'll just have to have nicknames or something?"

"Sure, that's a _great_ idea." Martha cut in sarcastically, knowing that her version of the Doctor wouldn't have let that slide. "But how about, instead, we use the Doctor for the youngest version? Or the one with the best hair?"

From the subtle thumbs-up she received from Donna's body, she'd done something right.

"Or..." Rory jumped in, knowing how stubborn Eleven is about little things like this. "It should go to the one with the best bowtie?"

"Or the best eyebrows!" Bill exclaimed, beaming widely. Bantering, she could do.

"You lot realise there's a simple solution, right?" Donna could no longer hold her tongue, as the Doctor was clearly being his stupid self and her job was to point it out, no matter what body she was in. Sure, every future incarnation would know this was out of character for Martha, but at that moment she couldn't care less. "Just call each other by your number of regeneration." She smirked at the realisation on all the Doctor's faces. "Dumbos." She added quietly, causing Ten to elbow her slightly in warning.

"What, so I'd be Eleven?" Rory asked. He thought about it, then shrugged; he felt uncomfortable with people calling him the Doctor anyway. "Sounds fine."

"Yes it does, points to Martha!" Thirteen beamed, staring at her previous companion in admiration, but also with a hint of sadness. "But anyways, back to Yaz. What were you about to say?"

"Oh! Er..." Yaz was so confused by how quick the conversation had circled, that she had to take a minute to remember her question. "Oh yeah! Unless I'm mistaken, there are 5 TARDISes here, but only 4 Doctors. Plus, you mentioned that the one we were going to meet had large ears. Now..." Yaz stopped for a second to scrutinise the 3 previous faces of her friend. "None of you guys seem to fit that description. Would it be fair to say that this version, the one that sent the distress call, is the one that hasn't come out of his TARDIS yet?"

"Oh, another gold star for Yaz!" Thirteen smiled wider. The previous Doctors went for an impressed silence; they could see why their future self liked this woman. "Yes, that _would_ be a good assumption!"

"So, hang on." Graham cut in, staring at what he thought was the group of Doctors incredulously. "This version of you sent an urgent distress call, and hasn't come out of his TARDIS yet, all while you guys have been arguing over who gets the name 'Doctor'?!"

"Ah. Right." Thirteen looked sheepishly at her fam, finding it bizarre to be called out by her own voice, and quickly advanced on the only pair of doors that'd yet to be opened.

The three companions masquerading as the Doctor followed suit, leaving everyone else to form a crowd behind. Thirteen reached out an arm to knock on the blue wood insistently, and a crash from behind the doors caused slight alarm before a distinctly female voice called out from the inside.

"Just a second!" A set of footsteps could be heard padding towards the door. Hearing the voice, Ten froze, and grabbed onto Donna's borrowed arm in shock.

Donna jumped at the death grip Ten was holding her arm in, and was wondering why on earth he seemed so panicked all of a sudden. She looked up at his face, still finding it weird to see her own features used by someone else, but freezing when seeing his expression. She never thought her face could convey that much emotion; the look in Ten's new blue eyes was one of sorrow, grief, and unbearable pain. Suddenly, she recognised it; she saw that look all the time on the face Martha now wore, it was the look he always sported whenever he mentioned...

Oh. Oh n-

"Hi, sorry about that." A blond woman opened the doors, smiling innocently; immediately, Donna felt like she recognised her from somewhere.

She met eyes with Martha, who was looking back at her in realisation; clearly Martha had guessed who this stranger was, and was dreading the acting she was going to have to pull off. Donna winced, feeling sorry for her friend.

"You must be a future Doctor." Rose continued, because who else could turn Thirteen into a stuttering mess? "Or, er, _lots_ of future Doctors."

"Right, yes, we're the future Doctors." Thirteen gulped, recovering far quicker than Ten even thought possible. "Nice to see you again, Rose. You sent a distress signal?"

"Yes, of course." Nine smiled again with Rose's face, opening the doors wider and gesturing behind him. "Come in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a little longer to finish this, my coursework deadline is in two weeks so I kinda need to focus on that. But don't worry, as soon as it's done I'll be dedicating all my energy to finishing this story.
> 
> If you enjoyed, please leave a comment, they really help to motivate me! :D


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Sorry it took a while to get this chapter out, I was working so hard at my coursework deadline that I kind of lost motivation to do things for a bit. To apologise, have a slightly longer chapter! :D
> 
> Reminder:
> 
> Nine > Rose  
> Rose > Jack  
> Jack > Nine  
> Ten > Donna  
> Donna > Martha  
> Martha > Ten  
> Eleven > Amy  
> Amy > Rory  
> Rory > Eleven  
> Twelve <-> Bill  
> Thirteen <-> Graham

"...So, let me get this straight." Rose began slowly, holding a much-too-wide finger out in front of her in confusion. "Whenever you're about to die, you heal yourself, but in the process you change into a completely different person?"

"Correct." The Doctor smiled in return before turning to Jack. "And this version of me, right now, is the ninth. I expect the future versions of me will ask for the sake of their companions."

"...Alright." Jack nodded slightly, understanding it a lot faster than Rose. He had heard legends of the Time Lords, after all. "And all I have to do is act like you for a couple hours while we pretend something is wrong with the TARDIS, then we'll get switched back?"

"Of course." The Doctor rolled his newly-brown eyes as he began fiddling with something on the console. "And there won't have to be any pretending! I'll just break something that'll need a couple hours to fix, so that the paradox _also_ fixes our... situation. It'll also have to be something that requires another TARDIS to fix, which'll explain why I had to call them."

"Right." Disgruntled, Rose crossed her arms, but everything about the action felt wrong in a different body, so she awkwardly let them fall back down to her sides. She didn't like it _normally_ when the Doctor explained stuff to her like she was stupid, but him doing it with her own face definitely seemed to be taking the mick.

In any case, she was still taking in that the Doctor'd had eight faces before the one he had now, along with the fact that he'd have more in the future. It hadn't hit her before how long he must've lived, or how many people had travelled with him before she did; she wanted to stay with him forever, but _her_ forever was around 90 years. How old did he say _he_ was? 903? She couldn't help but feel betrayed. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

"It never came up." The Doctor met eyes with her sharply. "Plus, when would I slip _that_ into conversation? Oh, Rose, I know we're about to see the end of the world and everything, but have I mentioned that when I die I change my face?"

"Well, when you put it like that..." Rose mumbled, silently admitting that it would be a hard subject to casually bring up. Still, she couldn't help but wonder that if the Doctor lived hundreds, or even thousands of years after she was gone, would he remember her?

"The end of the world, huh?" Jack asked thoughtfully, sitting in the chair next to the console. "I've always wanted to go, sounds like a classy occasion."

"I didn't see you there, sorry Jack." The Doctor smiled at him apologetically as he opened a panel underneath the console and reached inside it. "And I can assure you, it wasn't. Cassandra, she called herself the last 'pure' human, tried to profit off everyone's death by disabling the solar filter, but I managed to save everyone as per usual. Along with the help of a sentient tree."

"Sounds _thrilling_." Jack grinned. "Maybe I'll go anyway, just to spite you?"

"You can't, it's a fixed point in time." The Doctor aimed a stern look at Jack, which softened after seeing the amused look on his own features. "But sure, you can hide in the vents or something. We definitely didn't look in there."

"But then I wouldn't get to see the view, would I?" Jack whined, a huge grin now on his borrowed face.

"Okay!" Rose interrupted loudly, not wanting this tangent about her first outing with the Doctor to go any further. "Doctor, did you say future selves, plural? Are we about to have, like, ten of you in the same room?"

"Oh no, certainly not as many as that." He replied, moving closer to the panel under the console. "The maximum number that'll arrive is three, as I've got three regenerations left."

"Four of you in one room?" Jack grinned wider, if that was possible. "I _really_ can't tell you what I'm thinking right now."

"That, right there!" The Doctor leaped up suddenly and pointed a finger in Jack's face. "You've got to stop saying stuff like that right now if you want to pass as me."

"Oh please." Jack retorted, pulling off a very doctor-like snort. "I'm a great actor, you should've seen some of the scams I've pulled off. Plus, with you, there's three main steps: number one is being northern, which..." He pointed at his throat smugly. "Seems to have come with this body."

The Doctor crossed his arms, trying to fashion Rose's face into a glare. Meanwhile, the real Rose was smiling slightly at Jack's antics, causing his scowl to deepen even further for a reason unknown to him.

"Second is being sarcastic, which, honestly, have you met me?" Jack continued, aiming a wink at Rose. "And finally, being condescending, which I'd be anyway if I just walked down those stairs over there."

"What...?" Rose began, confused, but after seeing the smile that Jack normally wears when he's made a pun, she thinks for a second, then laughs. "Oh, because you'd be a con, _descending_! That's clever."

"Why, thank you." Jack smirked at the praise, knowing exactly how jealous he was making his Time Lord friend right now.

"Alright!" The Doctor jumped in, annoyed. "Yes, ha ha, very funny. But all joking aside, if you _really_ want to pass as me, you'll have to stop flirting with everyone you see. If that's at all possible."

"Hmm, I guess you're right." Jack thought for a second, before his eyes landed on his own body standing awkwardly off to the side. "In which case, _you'll_ have to flirt for me."

"W-what? Me?" Rose jumped as though she was surprised he was talking to her, causing Jack to chuckle. He never thought he'd see his own body be so scared at the concept of flirting. "I dunno, I've never really been that good at it."

"Then I'll teach you!" Jack jumped up from the chair in enthusiasm, moving behind Rose to clap her on the shoulders. "Come on, flirting 101 with Jack Harkness. Not many people can say they've taken _that_ class."

The Doctor stifled a laugh when he saw the traumatised look on Rose's borrowed face.

"Alright, so, the first step is to find the most attractive person in the room." Jack waved around the empty TARDIS as though it was full of people, one hand still on Rose's shoulder. "It doesn't matter whether it's a guy or a girl. I know 21st century people have hang-ups about this kind of thing, which seems crazy to me, but..."

"No, it's fine." Rose reassured him quickly. "I don't really care about gender either. I'm equally nervous around both."

"Fair." Jack laughed. "But to actually _be_ me, it's really all about the confidence. Now, once you've found the right person, the next step is to introduce yourself, like so." He walked away for a second before turning back, a suggestive smile on his borrowed face as he held out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness, pleased to meet you."

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"And that works?" Rose asked in fascination.

"Absolutely guaranteed." Jack grinned in return. "Reckon I'm the only man in the universe who can pull off having their own name as a pick up line."

The Doctor rolled his eyes even harder.

Luckily, he was saved from hearing any more by an alert popping up on the console.

"Ah, the other TARDISes have arrived!" He jumped up, glad of the distraction. He felt his companions immediately step behind him to look, suddenly realising how short he was now. Grumbling under his breath, he flicked a few switches to activate the scanner.

" _Four_ TARDISes? I thought you said three?" The Doctor could almost _feel_ Jack's smirk from right behind him. "Still, the more the merrier."

"That's not possible." The Doctor frowned, staring at the image just as two sets of TARDIS doors opened. Then he shook his head and shrugged. "But no use dwelling on it right now. We need to go over our cover story."

"Aw, no more time for flirting lessons?" Jack pouted, causing Rose to smile in amusement.

"No, not now everyone's here." The Doctor scowled again before focusing. "Alright, we'll say that we were having trouble steering the TARDIS, and that we had to land here to make repairs. I just went under the console to damage the time rotor, which should definitely need two hours and a part from another TARDIS to fix. Jack, remember, _you're_ the Doctor now, so you're the one who'll have to explain. You didn't know what else to do, so you sent a distress call to the future hoping that a future version of yourself would help."

"Alright." Jack nodded, before glancing at Rose. "Do you think any of your future companions will know _me_? Because if they do, Rose'll really have to act her socks off."

"I dunno, you _are_ getting quite hard to get rid of." The Doctor smirked back, before turning to Rose regretfully. "He's right, unfortunately. Even if the future companions don't know him, the future versions of _me_ will, and they'll notice immediately if Jack doesn't start flirting with at least one person in the room."

"I guess I can try." Rose nodded, looking the Doctor up and down. "Now, what about you? You sure you can pass as me?"

"Oh, don't worry about that." The Doctor waved a hand in dismissal. "I'm fantastic at acting. They won't suspect a thing."

" _Really_?" Rose smirked back. "You think you can actually slow down, be nice, and actually talk to people without being condescending?"

"If I want to, sure!" The Doctor shot back, eyes gleaming. "How hard can it be?"

"Okay, just checking." Rose raised her hands up in defense, still smiling. "Now, _please_ go and put a dressing gown on. And for the love of god, brush my hair."

"Oh, that's right!" The Doctor snapped his fingers. "Physical appearance. I knew there was something I was missing. Sorry! Time Lords tend to not really care about their appearances due to the whole regeneration thing. I've never been a woman before though, it's quite exciting! Hopefully I'll get to _actually_ be one before my cycle ends."

"You can change genders now?" Rose sighed, looking completely done with this situation. "You know what, I'm not even going to ask. Just, if you don't mind..." She gestured towards the corridor that led back to her room.

"Oh, right, sorry!" The Doctor smiled sheepishly as he started edging away from them. "I'm rambling. Don't mind me, I'll just..." He walked faster towards the corridor, before moving completely out of sight.

Rose sighed, turning back to the scanner; the field outside was now full of people, and she found herself wondering which ones could be future Doctors.

"That one looks like it could be him." Jack had come up behind her, leaving her wondering how he'd known what she was thinking about, as he pointed to a man wearing a bow tie and a tweed jacket. "He sort of has the vibes, if you know what I mean. And _that_ looks like something he'd wear." He pointed to another man with spiky hair, wearing a blue suit under a long brown coat.

"Mmm." Rose hummed, but try as she might, she couldn't visualise the Doctor being anyone but the man who's body Jack was currently inhabiting. Still, she didn't want to lose face, so she played along. "He did just say he could change into a woman, that one looks vaguely doctor-like." She pointed to a ginger woman standing near the spiky haired man.

"I guess." Jack nodded, before looking her right in the face. "Are you alright? I get that this is a bit freaky, but the Doctor is definitely going to solve this one."

"Oh, I'm not worried about _that_." Rose lowered her eyes to the screen again. If she discounted the four Doctors, she counted ten others in the field outside. "It's just... seeing his future laid out right in front of me, I... and on top of that, having to act like _you_..."

"Well, it can't be all bad, right?" Jack smirked, lifting a hand to run it smoothly through his hair but it stopped abruptly when it felt almost nothing there. He settled for awkwardly pushing his hands into the pockets of the Doctor's leather jacket. "I mean, sure, we're very different people, but it's only for a couple hours. And after that, we can go to that planet with the chocolate waterfalls the Doctor was telling us about! Sound good?"

"Yeah." Rose smiled slightly, glad of Jack's reassurance even when it was coming from the Doctor's face. "Thanks, Jack."

"Alright, I'm back!" Rose heard her own voice calling from behind her, so she dubiously turned around; thankfully, the Doctor had indeed put on her dark blue dressing gown, and had ran a quick brush through her hair. He hovered a couple metres away, trying to look casual, but she could tell he was anxiously waiting for her approval. "Is everything to your satisfaction?"

"Yes, thanks." Rose beamed back. Even smiling in Jack's body felt different, but the answering grin from her own body was worth it. Suddenly, she whirled to face Jack, a worried expression overtaking her features. "Oh, you didn't want _me_ to change as well, did you?"

"No, it's fine." Jack bit back a smile; this girl just couldn't stop caring about other people. "I look good in everything." He eyed the clothes he had put on last night; some deep blue jogging bottoms paired with a white t-shirt with the logo of his favourite band, the Dreamboys, emblazoned on the front.

"Oh, _please_." The Doctor snorted as he advanced closer to the scanner screen. "Ooh, looks like the other versions of me have formed a group!"

Rose and Jack turned back to look, and indeed saw that four men were standing in the middle of the field, apart from the others; this group included the two men they had picked out earlier, along with a tall man with wild grey hair and a shorter one with a coat lined with rainbows.

"Ah, looks like we guessed correctly." Jack commented smugly. However, he could say no more than that before all four Doctors, led by the one in the rainbow coat, suddenly advanced on the TARDIS Jack and friends were standing in.

Immediately, all three of them fell into a full-blown panic, each of them wildly mouthing and gesturing about what they should be doing as though the people outside could hear them if they spoke. Eventually, this evolved into rushing around the TARDIS, fumbling with stuff they could grab onto so as to look casual; when three knocks finally sounded on the door, Jack was under the console fiddling with the panel the Doctor had left open, Rose was standing behind him holding the hammer the Doctor used to hit the console sometimes, and the Doctor himself had frozen in the middle of the floor, having not found anything to do. Startled by the knocks, Rose dropped the hammer, leading to a loud crash as it hit the floor; she immediately scrambled to pick it back up, muttering some apologies.

"Just a second!" The Doctor called out, his arms moving wildly as though he wanted to find something to grab, before forcing them to relax. Slowly, he took a deep breath, and tried to emulate the happiness that Rose produced on a daily basis; after a quick glance to ensure the real Rose and Jack didn't look suspicious, he turned the scanner off and walked briskly over to fling open the doors.

"Hi, sorry about that." He tried to mimic Rose's smile as he faced the unfamiliar man in the doorway. He also tried very hard to ignore the way he stuttered and stared sadly at him as soon as they locked eyes. "You must be a future Doctor. Or, er, lots of future Doctors." He carefully met the eyes of the other men standing behind the one in front of him.

"Right, yes, we're the future Doctors." The man in the rainbow-lined coat spoke, seeming to finally catch himself as he stood a little straighter. "Nice to see you again, Rose. You sent a distress signal?"

"Yes, of course." The Doctor plastered that smile on his face again, feeling guilty all of a sudden for dragging all these people here for a fake emergency. He stepped aside, opening the door further and waving a hand behind him. "Come in."

Immediately, all fourteen people piled into the room, most of them looking around as though they'd never seen it before.

"This is the TARDIS?" Amy looked round in amazement. "It's so... dark."

"Don't worry, Rory, I grow out of the emo phase." Thirteen waved a hand. "Still, I do have a soft spot for this desktop theme. Haven't seen it in, oh, a thousand years or so?"

Hearing this made Rose's stomach drop even further. A thousand years? She was lucky the Doctor even remembered her name.

"But Doc, surely our _own_ TARDIS is almost as dark as this one?" Graham questioned, also looking round. Finally, his eyes landed on the man holding a large mallet next to the console. He started in surprise. "Jack! What are _you_ doing here?"

"Er, hi." Rose lowered the hammer to her side, summoning all her courage in order to imitate Jack's winning smile. "Do I know you?"

"Not yet." The Doctor in rainbows reassured her, before turning back to her companion. "Jane, this is a version of Jack _before_ the one you met. Remember, no spoilers."

Graham folded his shorter arms and nodded slightly, a calculating look on his borrowed face. Rose was still smiling at him when she felt a slight kick on her ankle; she glanced down to see Jack gazing at her imploringly, mouthing the word 'flirt' as discreetly as he could. Immediately remembering what they'd talked about, she scanned the crowd; eventually, her eyes landed on an attractive woman in a denim jacket standing near the gray-haired Doctor. Slowly, she advanced, her hand already held out as she summoned her courage again.

"Captain Jack Harkness, pleased to meet you." She slapped a sleazy grin on her face as soon as the woman turned to look at her.

"Stop it!" Jack tried to sound annoyed from under the console, remembering how the Doctor liked to react to his flirty advances. Thirteen had also joined in, using a fond tone as though she'd missed him, as well as Martha, who'd remembered how the Doctor reacted to Jack's flirting during their trip to the end of the universe.

Meanwhile, Rose was still smiling at the woman she'd approached; Twelve could _only_ _just_ hide the flicker of emotion that'd passed over his borrowed face, so he settled for snorting in amusement as he shook the hand offered to him. "Bill Potts. And if you're doing what I think you're doing, you're _definitely_ barking up the wrong tree."

"Ah." Rose rocked back and forth on her feet awkwardly, her eyes flicking between Twelve and Bill. "Taken?"

"Not quite." Bill herself replied, a wide grin on her own borrowed face. "She's gay."

"Ah, a woman after my own heart!" Rose replied dramatically, placing a hand on Twelve's shoulder. After the subtle thumbs up she got from the real Jack under the console, she knew she'd said the right thing.

"Well, if we're done with the flirting..." Rory cut in, feeling like one of the Doctors should be seen to be taking charge. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Oh, it's just over here." Nine gestured towards Jack. "Doctor, didn't you say it had something to do with the time rotor?"

" _Yes_ , the time rotor." Jack took the Doctor's lead gratefully, head still under the console. "It's broken. Wrecked. Gone caput. However you want to describe it. I wasn't expecting more than one future me to show up, but thanks anyway! A little help here?"

"Right, of course." Thirteen rubbed her hands together enthusiastically as she advanced towards Jack, glad to finally work on the task that'd pass the time until her and Graham were switched back. Martha, Rory and Bill followed in pursuit, albeit less enthusiastically; each of them were unsure how long they could bluff their way through the sciencey explanations.

The rest of the group were left standing in awkward pairs or threes, slightly afraid to meet each other's eyes.

"So." Amy spoke up, trying not to let nervousness inject her husband's voice. "Anyone want to trade embarrassing stories about the Doctor?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I can get the next chapter done much quicker than it took to write this one! If you enjoyed, please leave a comment, they really help to motivate me :D


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder:
> 
> Nine > Rose  
> Rose > Jack  
> Jack > Nine  
> Ten > Donna  
> Donna > Martha  
> Martha > Ten  
> Eleven > Amy  
> Amy > Rory  
> Rory > Eleven  
> Twelve <-> Bill  
> Thirteen <-> Graham

The Doctor was _not_ having a fun time.

None of them would've categorised this as a particularly good day to begin with, but having to tell stories about himself in such a way as though he were one of his own companions? Nine, in particular, was impressed with how well he was fighting the urge to scowl.

Currently, Rose was really dragging out a story about how he'd sent the Empty people to their 'rooms' the day before, as Jack had only just arrived on the TARDIS and there was really nothing else embarrassing about that particular adventure. She was also guilty of embellishing the story a little, by making it out to be much more dramatic than it actually was. He wouldn't be surprised if his eyes were watering with the effort to keep from rolling them at Rose's complicated hand gestures.

"...And then he has the audacity to say something like 'I'm glad that worked, those would've been terrible last words.'!" Rose grinned widely as everyone laughed, seeming to be enjoying herself immensely.

"Yeah, that sounds like the Doc." Ryan smiled fondly over at Thirteen, slightly startled at seeing Graham's body in her coat for a moment before remembering. His grandad was actually standing right next to him, in the body of their Time Lord friend, slouching slightly and with his arms gripped together tightly over his chest as though defensive. Ryan felt the utmost sympathy for him; he couldn't imagine being flung suddenly into an alien body, let alone a female one.

Meanwhile, Rose sensed the upcoming awkward silence that would ensue if no one else chimed in with another story, so she nudged her own body slightly on the shoulder.

"Hey, Rose, what were you telling me last night about the Doctor and the London Eye?" She smirked, staring directly at his face.

Nine knew immediately what she was referring to, and in that moment he felt like he'd rather regenerate than tell it to all his future companions. Still, in the interest of keeping up appearances, he only just managed not to open his mouth in protest and turned back to the group with a sickly sweet smile on his borrowed face.

"Ah yes, that was hilarious!" He managed to say without speaking through gritted teeth. "So, we were dealing with... er, these plastic things, autons..." He tried to speak like Rose did, and when Eleven's group nodded fervently, he gained some more confidence. "...And they were using... some kind of, er, giant dish thing to send their signals everywhere." He only just managed not to sigh or grimace at the memory, and tried to force humour on his face. "The thing is, we were standing right in front of the London Eye when he mentioned... this dish thing. It hadn't even registered to him that it was an option."

Despite his slight attempt to defend himself, chuckles still rang out from people who could see what was coming. His smile flickered for a second before continuing.

"Of course, I nodded to the thing behind him, but even then he still couldn't see it for what it was. I think... it took around three tries for his mind to actually catch up with his eyes." This time, full on laughter filled the room. Nine joined them with a few breathless chuckles, but his heart really wasn't in it. The worst part was, Rose was grinning widely next to him.

"Enjoying yourself?" She whispered tauntingly, knowing exactly how hard this was for him.

"Shut up." He managed to mutter back through his smile. Damn, he'd basically just proved her right. She was going to be insufferable about this for the next few weeks, he knew.

"He can be a complete idiot sometimes, can't he?" River smiled fondly over at what she thought were four versions of the Time Lord she'd married, (and Rory), before turning back to Eleven and Amy. "How long ago was 1969 for you? Do you remember what he did then?"

"Oh, that was priceless!" Amy grinned wildly at Eleven in her own body, who had just tried to pass off a facepalm as a gesture to tuck his hair behind his ear. Quickly, Eleven saved face by also smiling, and agreeing with the other two.

"Yes, yes, hilarious." He patted his future wife on the shoulder. "Why don't you tell everyone about that, eh River? I can't, because... I'd break down in laughter before I even finished!" He laughed as he retreated behind the real Amy slightly, as even though he couldn't help being clumsy and childish this go around, he wasn't sure if he wanted to see or hear his previous companions pass judgement on him.

"Right, right." River smiled knowingly at him before turning back to the others. She was very good at drawing people in with her stories, Eleven remembered, and he found himself focusing all his attention on her before remembering exactly _what_ she was going to tell everyone. "So, we were having some trouble in America, and the Doctor, like the idiot he is, decides to land the TARDIS in the oval office."

"Of _course_ he does." Donna rolled her borrowed eyes, already seeing the impending disaster but invested all the same. She smiled when she saw her own face frown slightly at her in the corner of her eye.

"Now, just this once, he had managed to get the invisibility filter working. With my help, of course." River winked. "So, when he inevitably stumbled out of the TARDIS, he found himself standing in the oval office, next to President Nixon, with no clear indicator as to how he got in."

"Sounds exactly like the stupid situations he _still_ manages to get himself into daily." Nardole deadpanned, earning him a glare from Bill's body. Twelve decided he didn't like this story much.

"So eventually, when the inevitable happens and Nixon sees him, he starts stammering and backing away." River grinned, the best part of the story coming up. "And what does he do?"

"He bumps into the TARDIS?" Yaz guesses enthusiastically. She can picture it very clearly for some reason.

"More like crashes headlong into it, dear." River chuckles. "It really knocked him down as well. He was left sprawling all over the floor."

"I think you might be exaggerating a small bit there." Twelve finally interrupted, though he could've listened to his wife's voice for hours despite the subject matter. "It wasn't as bad as she's describing it, right?" He addressed what he thought was Rory, as he'd always been the more rational person of the group.

"Mmm, maybe a little, but he definitely dropped to the floor." Amy smiled back. "It was hilarious, because you couldn't see what he'd walked into." Something in her smirk made Twelve stop and stare strangely for a moment, as though he knew something wasn't right. After a while, though, he shook his head slightly to clear it; maybe he just wasn't used to being around the Ponds again after so long.

"Ooh, I've got one!" Donna exclaimed suddenly, drawing all eyes to her. She'd just remembered something Martha had told her about her first trip in the TARDIS. "One time, to save Shakespeare from a load of space witches, he used a spell from Harry Potter to send them back to their dimension."

At this, Ten had to stop himself from grinning. That'd been a fun day.

"Seriously?!" Rose's laugh came out louder than she was expecting with Jack's deeper voice. She was a huge fan of the Harry Potter books; in the year she'd disappeared, the Half-Blood Prince had been released, so she'd stolen a copy from her mum (who was also a fan) to read it before it got spoiled for her. She was already halfway through it. "Did he at least know it would work?"

"You'd think he would, but no." Donna rolled her eyes fondly. "He always does stupid things like that spontaneously, the right idiot."

At this, Eleven stared at her thoughtfully. Why had Martha seemingly insinuated that _he_ was the one who'd come up with the word, when in fact _she_ had? Was she being modest, or perhaps remembering it wrong?

"Trust me, he hasn't changed." Yaz also rolled her eyes. She was beginning to wonder if that was something you learned to do particularly effectively after travelling in the TARDIS. "We met him when he crashed through the roof of a train, and in the very same night, jumped from the end of one crane to another in mid air."

"That sounds a bit reckless, even for him." Twelve frowned slightly. He thought he'd gotten better at stuff like that. Unless... "What was he wearing? When he crashed into your train?"

The three newest companions looked between each other in confusion, before Graham answered cautiously.

"Uh, some kind of tattered old coat that was much too big for him, if I'm remembering correctly." He shifted on the spot slightly. "Yeah, along with a white shirt underneath. Why do you ask?"

"Er..." Twelve realised he'd backed himself into a corner. All of his past and future companions were staring at him curiously, and he remembered with a pang of dread that Thirteen was right, he _hadn't_ explained regeneration to Bill yet. She had no way of knowing that information. He had to find some way to-

"So, Bill, you're the only one who hasn't told everyone a story about the Doctor yet." Nardole stepped in before Twelve could dig himself an even deeper hole. "Anything come to mind?" He subtly stood on Twelve's borrowed foot, which was just enough to break him out of his panic and realise what Nardole was trying to do.

"Ah, yes!" Twelve nodded in relief. "Yes, if we're talking about stupid things he's done, he almost blew up the first human colony before realising what it was and stopping it at the last moment."

"What?!" Nardole immediately thundered, a horrified expression on his face. "Of all the dangerous things...! You didn't tell me that was what happened-"

"Did everyone end up okay?" Ten interrupted, staring concernedly at Twelve.

"Oh, yes, he won. Rebooted everything, flipped the chess board, however you want to put it." Twelve smiled sadly at whom he thought was Donna. "But if we're talking about _embarrassing_ things, one time he hid in the closet of a house I'd just moved into with my friends. He scared us half to death when we discoved him in there. He was scanning for... alien stuff."

"But there actually ended up being some alien stuff there, I'm sure." Eleven sighed melodromatically. "There always is."

"It's almost like you've experienced this yourself." Twelve smirked at Amy's body. He still missed her terribly. In fact, he was just about to ask her what trip she'd last been on, to make sense of where she was in her timeline, before he heard his own voice call out from over by the console.

"Bill! Come here a second." His own grinning face popped out from behind the central column. Blimey, now he realised why people reacted the way they did when he smiled at them. "My previous selves don't seem to believe me when I say I managed to hide the fact that I was blind from you for two weeks."

"Alright, it isn't as bad as it sounds." Twelve immediately whispered frantically to the group, which had all turned to him with wide eyes. He started moving away slowly, to escape the gazes of the people he knew too well. "He- he got his sight back, obviously. I'll just... well..." Quickly, he retreated behind the console, joining what he thought were his past selves and one future. Nardole rolled his eyes fondly.

"Doctor?" Donna muttered to her own body, leaning on the handrail to get a better look at who she thought was Twelve. "Why does that future version of you look exactly like that man we saved in Pompeii?"

Ten waited for everyone else to talk amongst themselves as well before replying.

"Well, regeneration isn't an exact science." He whispered back cautiously, staring resolutely at the ground to prevent his gaze from wandering towards a certain blond-haired companion. "We don't choose exactly what we're going to get. Some Time Lords are better at controlling it, yes, but for me, it's either based on who or what I was thinking about in the exact moment I regenerate, something I've been subconsciously mulling over for a while, or it's completely random."

"Right." Donna turned this over in her head for a second, before standing on her toes to see if that would give her a better look at her friend's future self. Already, she missed her height. "But surely it-"

"Don't stare!" Ten grabbed her arm as discreetly as he could to force her back on her heels. He also willed her to look him in the eyes, which she did for a second before glancing away nervously. Maybe she found it weird to look into her own eyes, he reasoned. "Remember, you're Martha right now. You've got no reason to recognise him."

"Alright, first of all, _spaceman_ , never do that again." Donna glared, gesturing at how he'd grabbed her arm. Ten forced himself not to smile in return at hearing Donna's inflections in Martha's voice, and also decided not to point out that he was currently human and a woman, as that would surely worsen the situation. "And second of all, surely it can't be random. There's no chance you'd regenerate into an old Roman dude you've met before by coincidence."

"You'd be surprised." Ten replied wistfully. "A while ago, a long while ago actually, I landed on Earth to find that a man who looked exactly like me wanted to take over the planet. Salamander, his name was... luckily, looking like him did come with its advantages."

"You impersonated him to find out what he was up to, didn't you." Donna tiredly massaged her eyes with her palms.

"Well what else was I supposed to do?" Ten replied indignantly. "He was taking people prisoner underground and lying to them, so they'd create national disasters for him!"

"All the same..." Donna stopped him before he could ramble any more about previous adventures. "You met this... Salamander when you already looked like him, whereas we met _him_ -" She gestured at Twelve's body, "-When you looked like _that_." She gestured towards the body that currently housed Martha. "Why would you think about some random Roman guy when you're about to die?"

"How should I know? I haven't lived it yet." Ten loved how great Donna's voice was for sass. "I guess I'll find out the long way round. Maybe you should ask me about it? That version of me, I mean. I'm sure he'll have the answer."

"Erm, I dunno about that." Donna hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other. "Like you said, Martha's got no way of knowing why he looks familiar, so..."

This was not the entire reason for Donna's hesitation; the fact was, while she'd always known her best friend would outlive her, being faced with it directly was a whole other matter. And sure, by now she knew she'd be staying with him as long as she lived, but this version had died twice since knowing her. Which meant that he'd either seen her die from old age, or from one of the various scrapes they always got themselves into. She looked round at the group; he'd even had at least two sets of companions since her, so he'd obviously long since gotten over losing her.

For her at least, the question wasn't 'was she willing to face a version of her friend who knew how she was going to die', because she had no intention of finding that out today. Instead, the question she found herself asking was 'is she willing to talk to a version of her best friend who'd already lost her and gotten over losing her, as talking to him would probably open that wound because he didn't like endings'. She tried not to let this train of thought show in her expression, but from the look her own body was giving her, she probably hadn't managed it.

"Still, you could say something like 'Donna told me you look exactly like someone she saved in Pompeii'." Ten glanced sadly at his companion, taking a wild guess as to why she wouldn't want to talk to his future self. "Donna, you know he's still me, right? I mean, yeah, we look very different, but that's regeneration's fault, not ours. That version of me is still me, just a little while later down the line. And from the stories everyone's been telling, I haven't changed much."

"Yeah, you get even _more_ clumsy and reckless, from the sound of it." Donna snorted half-heartedly. Ten counted that as a win.

"Still." He gazed seriously at her, trying to drive his point home. This time she held his stare for five whole seconds, which he counted as another win; he was slightly surprised at the vulnerability in her eyes though, having never seen it in Martha's brown irises before. She must've always wanted to seem strong for him, he realised sadly. "We've got the same memories. If anything, I'll be ecstatic to see you again. I could never forget someone like you."

"Likewise, dumbo." Donna smirked, before quickly glancing over at the console again. "And obviously, I know you're all the same person. I'm not worried about you not recognising me or some rubbish like that, it's just..." She cast her mind around to find an explanation that would placate him, and eventually settled on a half truth. "Clearly, from all these other people travelling with you, I'm not around any more. I feel like future you would let something slip about my future, and I'm really trying not to think about that right now."

"Ah." Ten winced, bringing up a hand to rub the back of his neck awkwardly before realising how much harder it was with a load of long hair in the way. "I understand, the passage of time and all that. Still, I think my future self would know to avoid any spoilers. This kind of thing happens a lot, though there's generally much less of us, and we manage to avoid spoilers then. I'm sure I can handle talking to you without destroying the universe or anything."

"I guess." Donna nodded shortly. Well, that'd backfired. Now the Doctor was _expecting_ her to go and talk to eyebrows over there, which she'd have to do, otherwise he'd think she wasn't comfortable doing it. Didn't he realise that seeing her after he'd lost her would only bring him pain?

Speaking of pain, that was the only word she could think of to describe the expression on her own face as it stared over her shoulder; frowning slightly, she turned, only to realise that the object of Ten's gaze was none other than Rose, who was talking to the man Donna seemed to remember was called Jack. She rolled her eyes when Ten realised she'd noticed what he was staring at, reddened slightly and put his hands awkwardly into her dressing gown pockets.

"Oh, just go talk to her, you great idiot." She elbowed his arm, causing him to glare half-heartedly at her. "Say that you're interested to meet her because the Doctor's always mentioning her. Which, let's be honest, is true. The first time I met you, you mentioned her, like, five times."

"Only because I'd literally just said goodbye to her when you appeared out of nowhere." Ten muttered sulkily, crossing his arms.

"O-oh." Donna stuttered for a moment, eyes widening. She'd been terrible to him when she'd first appeared; she remembered thinking she was firmly in the right, but now it turns out he'd literally just said goodbye to the love of his life? She winced, remembering his heartbroken expression when she'd waved a purple shirt in front of his face. "I'm... so sorry. God, I wouldn't be surprised if you were considering launching me out into space, the way I was acting."

"What? No!" Ten looked horrified at the very prospect. "You had every right to be angry. I mean, sure, it wasn't actually my fault, but I was the only other person in the room, so it was a reasonable conclusion to come to. There was no way for you to have known... what'd just happened." His eyes latched back onto Rose. She looked exactly like he remembered.

"Oh, for God's sake." Donna, having had enough of his pining, rolled her eyes. Quickly, she locked her own wrist in a death grip and began dragging her best friend over to the blonde and the man in the long blue coat, who she noticed vaguely was getting more and more good looking as they got closer. Ten only had time to widen his eyes before he was standing right next to his previous companions. Before he could say anything stupid, Donna spoke. "Hi! I'm Martha, and this is Donna. Are you Rose?"

"Yes...?" Nine replied questioningly as he took the hand offered to him, glancing once at Rose, who was staring at him imploringly from Jack's body. Immediately, he knew what she was asking him to do, and plastered a smile on his face. "Yes, yes I am. Hello. Which Doctor do you travel with?"

"Ten." Ten replied, his eyes still fixed on Rose's body as though he couldn't believe she was right in front of him. Suddenly, he took note of her confused expression, and realised he'd have to be more specific as she hadn't been outside when they'd introduced themselves. "Er, the one with the suit. The blue suit? Tall hair?"

"Sandshoes." Donna smirked, evoking a snort from Jack's body. Ten glared at them both.

"Ah, the sandshoes." Nine nodded in recognition. Ten resisted the urge to facepalm. "So, he's the regeneration after mine?"

"If yours is the edgy one with the big ears, yes." Ten replied, somewhat sulkily. This earned another snort from Rose, which caused Nine to scowl in spite of himself.

"Funny." He forced a grin on his face, before turning back to Donna. "So, do I know you in the future? Is that how you know my name?"

"Oh, no, the Doctor just mentions you a lot." Donna smiled sadly, causing both Nine and Rose to ponder over this for a second. Finally, Rose seemed to come to herself again, and remembered Jack's flirting advice; quickly, she stepped towards the shorter woman, hand extended.

"I don't believe we've met." She slapped on the same sleazy grin from earlier. "Captain Jack Harkness, and you are...?"

Nine didn't want to give himself away, but he didn't want to scare off his future companions either, so he grabbed Rose lightly on the arm and pulled her back.

"Not now, Jack." He sighed, making a show of rolling his eyes. "Sorry, he does that. Just ignore him."

"No, it's fine, I don't mind." Donna smirked, eyeing Jack's body suggestively. Ten then inconspicuously stood on her foot, which brought her out of her reverie enough to remember some information Martha had told her about her run in with another Time Lord named the Master. "Sorry, wait a moment. _We_ haven't met, Rose, but Jack and I have. We went to the end of the universe."

"Are you sure?" Nine asked, eyeing his future companion comcernedly. "That sounds dangerous, I don't think anyone's travelled that far before."

"It was." Donna winced, remembering the details Martha had told her about. "It's lucky we had Jack there, really. He jumped in when we stopped to refuel the TARDIS in Cardiff."

"Ah, right." Nine nodded in recognition. "The Doctor told us he needs to do that soon as well."

"Really?" Ten asked wistfully. He thinks he has a good idea of where they were in their timeline now. "What was your last trip?"

"Oh, we went to World War 2." Nine replied, a quizzical expression overtaking his features. He wondered why this Donna woman wanted to know. "It was awful really, we had to stop the nanogenes that this guy set loose-" He slapped Rose on the arm, who glared at him half-heartedly. "...from turning the whole of London into gas mask zombies. Luckily, we only had to find a DNA sample to-"

Ten watched as who he thought was his lost companion rambled on about their past adventure, and if he'd actually been listening, he would've noticed how she seemed to go into technical things that he was sure had gone over her head at the time. However, he was so transfixed by her appearance that he couldn't have recognised a single word coming out of her mouth if he tried. The only piece of information his mind seemed to be able to process was that Rose, the woman whom he'd burned up a sun just to say goodbye to, was right here in front of him.

The only thing was, she didn't recognise him. She hadn't even seen him regenerate yet. A small part of his mind considered doing something stupid, but since the rest of his mind wasn't functioning properly, it seemed to be winning. He opened his mouth...

Donna elbowed him. Hard.

He blinked in pain, turning to Donna, who was giving him Martha's patented death glare as though she knew what he'd been about to say. He lowered his eyes in shame, vaguely noticing that the blonde next to him was still talking; conflicted, he tried to listen to what she was saying. ' _Come on._ ' He told himself. ' _Pull yourself together, Doctor! Surely you can talk to her as though you've never met her before. At least for the sake of getting back to your own body._ '

CRASH!

Without warning, the TARDIS suddenly tilted to one side, causing all the companions to stumble into the handrail on the left-hand side.

"Sorry!" Jack called apologetically from Nine's body, his head still under the console. "Flicked the wrong switch. One second..." He buried himself further underneath, occasionally letting Thirteen help by passing her some wires to reconnect.

As luck would have it, Ten, in the confusion, had stumbled into a position where Rose's blonde hair was inches away from his face. He gulped as Nine grinned, rolling his eyes fondly at the man under the console.

Damn.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while!
> 
> If you enjoyed, please leave a comment, they really help to motivate me :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder:
> 
> Nine > Rose  
> Rose > Jack  
> Jack > Nine  
> Ten > Donna  
> Donna > Martha  
> Martha > Ten  
> Eleven > Amy  
> Amy > Rory  
> Rory > Eleven  
> Twelve <-> Bill  
> Thirteen <-> Graham

"Well, if we're done with the flirting..." Rory rolled his eyes, but his hands were shaking slightly out of nervousness; he felt like it was only a matter of time before he messed up in front of all these people. Discreetly, he slid them into the pockets of the tweed jacket he was wearing. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Oh, it's just over here." The young blonde woman pointed towards the console. Even though she hadn't introduced herself, Thirteen had said she was called Rose, so Rory tried to look like he trusted her. He was the Doctor right now, and the Doctor would certainly trust a previous companion. "Doctor, didn't you say it had something to do with the time rotor?"

"Yes, the time rotor." The past Doctor who was under the console confirmed. Rory still hadn't got a proper look at him yet, but if he had his numbers correct, this was the ninth regeneration of his friend. "It's broken. Wrecked. Gone caput. However you want to describe it. I wasn't expecting more than one future me to show up, but thanks anyway! A little help here?"

"Right, of course." Thirteen answered enthusiastically, bounding over to the console. Rory followed with the other Doctors, noticing that this incarnation was rather similar to the one he knew in terms of mannerisms.

"Ah yes, I see the problem." She was saying when Rory had gotten close enough to look into the hole under the console. "You've blown the spectrometer on the time rotor's infograph. This'll take a while to fix."

"Yes, we know." Jack replied, rolling his eyes. "Three hours at the most."

"Great!" Martha smiled, knowing this was enough time for the bodyswap to reverse itself. All four faces turned to her; this caused her smile to waver slightly, but it didn't drop. "I mean, we love fixing the TARDIS, don't we?"

"Correct, sandshoes." Jack smirked, feeling like he was bursting at the seams from how hard he was trying not to mention how much he liked the new body. "And if you lot really are future versions of me, I'm sure you're all just as eager to start as I am."

"Anything to fix the old girl." Thirteen grinned as she looked around nostalgically, her eyes finally fixating on the open panel under the console. Quickly, she reached in and grabbed the pile of small circuit boards Jack was periodically removing. "Right, let's get a shift on then!"

She then proceeded to start adjusting the small dials on the circuit boards to the label that read 'power level 3', before placing them in a separate pile. Bill, seeing her doing this out of the corner of her eye, began to mimic her; Rory then caught this, and eventually so did Martha. Soon they were all adjusting the circuit boards in a fairly uncomfortable silence; Rory's hands were still shaking so he was having trouble adjusting the dials, Bill was slowly slouching in on herself as her shoulders tensed, and Martha was getting pins and needles in her foot but didn't move it as she knew the movement would draw attention to herself. Jack was also growing uncomfortable, though no one could tell as his face was hidden. He was extremely glad when Thirteen broke the ice.

"So, bowtie..." Thirteen leant against the railing, the silence seeming not to affect her at all as she gazed intently at her eleventh body. "You're being more quiet than I remember. Where are you in your time stream?"

"Oh, right, er..." Rory looked up sharply, losing his nerve for a second at being singled out. His hands shook so hard he almost dropped the circuit board he was holding. "We've just been to the hotel planet Apalapucia, and-"

"Oh, no need to explain any further." Thirteen winced at the memory of that day, but also catalogued at the back of her mind that Eleven's group knew _who_ River was at this point, but not that they were married. She assumed that Twelve was coming to the same conclusion, from the unfocused gaze he was sending at his previous regeneration. "What about you, eyebrows?"

"O-oh! Er..." Bill jumped at being addressed; she'd tried to watch silently for a while to gauge the dynamic between these different versions of her tutor, but now that option had been taken away, she cleared her throat nervously. "We've just been to Mars. Met the ice warrior empress. Pleasant woman, though a bit too murder-y for my taste."

"Ah." Thirteen nodded, looking very much like she wanted to say something but couldn't bring herself to. Instead, she went with: "How's Bill? Is she fine?"

"At the moment, yeah." Bill felt an odd twist in her heart at the worried expression on the face she felt like she knew, but also didn't. "Do I want to ask why?"

"No." Thirteen's eyes drifted to the floor to avoid seeing the underlayer of fear on her previous incarnation's face. The loss of her student was still fairly recent for her. "Just... appreciate her while you can. She's brilliant." She then looked up at the faces of her other past selves. "They all are."

"Jeez, I'm sappy in the future." Jack grinned, despite the fact that no one else could see it.

"Shut up!" Thirteen laughed, slapping his shoulder playfully. The tension broken, everyone seemed to relax slightly; Bill's shoulders slumped in relief, Rory let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and Martha finally moved into a sitting position she was more comfortable in. "What about you then, ears? Done anything important since you picked up Jack?"

"No, gask mask zombies were just yesterday, I'm afraid." Jack sat up a little so that Thirteen could see his smirk. "Ears? Seriously?"

"Well, would you prefer nose?" Thirteen grinned back. "Or leather?"

"I would actually prefer leather, yes." Jack mock glared. He was finding this quite easy; it was like bantering with his own Doctor.

"Ears it is." A mischievous grin overtook Thirteen's features. It'd been a while since she'd talked to a past self, and it was quite a welcome distraction from the whole Gallifrey thing.

"Watch it, rainbows." Jack pointed at her warningly, but a smile still flitted across his face. He wondered how long it'd been since this Doctor had seen him last.

"See, I like that nickname." Thirteen's grin widened. "You just tried to insult me, but gave me a good nickname instead. How'd you feel?"

"Heartbroken." Jack put a hand over his heart and plastered a look of false hurt on his face. "Absolutely heartbroken."

"Oh, just shut your mouth and keep working." Thirteen stuck her tongue out playfully. In response, Jack made a face at her, before grinning and lowering himself back underneath the console.

Thirteen glanced back at her other incarnations, wondering why they hadn't jumped in at some point; while Ten seemed to be smiling at their antics, Eleven and Twelve just seemed to be quietly getting on with fixing the TARDIS. Eleven she could understand, since he'd just had to leave a future Amy behind, but Twelve? Maybe it was Missy who was weighing on his mind, she supposed. Still, all of them but Nine was acting strangely, and she intended to find out why.

"So, what about you, sandshoes?" Thirteen prompted her tenth body, noticing how he tensed up, but didn't object to the name. "From the fact that you brought Martha and Donna, I'd say you've just paid a visit to UNIT, correct?"

"Close." Martha winced, remembering the events of the day before. _Her Hath friend's sad eyes as he sank deeper into the mud..._ she shivered involuntarily. "Messaline."

"Oh." Thirteen winced as well, interpreting Martha's reaction to be for the loss of Jenny; she remembered how down she'd felt after losing another child, and immediately reasoned that this was the reason Ten had been so subdued. She decided not to mention it. "So, dropping Martha home now, are we?"

"Yes, actually." Martha nodded, trying not to stare strangely at the future version of her friend. How good was a Time Lord's memory? "I think she stayed a while longer to help me, after Jenny... well, you know."

"Yeah." Thirteen stretched out the word in sympathy, looking wistfully over at who she thought was Martha. "We never did appreciate her as much as she deserved, did we?"

Martha stared back. _What_ did she just say?

"I mean, I think you've realised by now." Thirteen continued, oblivious to the blush slowly spreading across Martha's face. "It may not have been obvious, but the way we took her for granted was completely out of order. I just remember some of the things I said to her, and wonder how on earth she put up with me. There was no excuse for it really."

"B-but Rose-" Martha stuttered weakly, not even sure why she was trying to defend him. In all honesty, she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing.

"Oh, please." Thirteen waved a hand dismissively. "When we lost Adric, did we take it out on Tegan and Nyssa? Of course not, it wasn't their fault. Just like losing Rose wasn't Martha's fault, and yet we were still distant with her." Thirteen shook her head forlornly, still gazing at Martha's body. "I mean, she saved our life four times. Did you ever thank her for it? That's a rhetorical question by the way, I know you didn't."

He kept count. _He kept count._ Martha could suddenly hear the twin heartbeats in her ears, clear as day. Still, despite how surreal it was, she felt like she was intruding on something, as Thirteen thought she was talking to herself right now and had no idea that Martha was actually hearing this. As though she'd read her mind, Thirteen frowned slightly.

"I just wish we could actually say this to her." She said, scrunching up her borrowed face in frustration. "I'm much too socially awkward this go around, I feel like I'd mess it up. And the woman who walked the earth deserves so much more than any awkward apology I could give her."

Martha still didn't know what to say. She was touched, and wanted nothing more than to comfort her friend with a hug at that moment, but that action alone would almost definitely blow her cover. She resolved to do it after they'd switched back. Just as she came to that conclusion, Thirteen poked her twelfth body on the shoulder.

"Hey, eyebrows, why don't you try it?" She grinned, inwardly curious as to what kind of reaction this would invoke from him. "Surely any attempt would be better than mine."

"Oh, you think so?" Bill raised an eyebrow in reply. She'd been discreetly absorbing every word of what Thirteen had said, as she was supposed to know it herself, and she thought she had the gist of it. "Because I can say with certainty that our social awkwardness level doesn't change with regeneration."

"Hey, spoilers!" Jack called in a mock offended voice.

"Literally everything I just said was spoilers!" Thirteen glared at the leather-clad body still under the console, even though he couldn't see it. "You know what, it doesn't matter, you'll forget soon enough."

Rory nodded slightly in confirmation; he'd been wondering about that, as if the tenth version of his friend had met him here, surely he'd have recognised him when they'd first met for real? But no, Thirteen had just confirmed that each version of the Doctor would forget this encounter after it was done. Whether it'll be inevitable, or whether the Doctors will have to erase their memories themselves, Rory didn't know, but it was one way to avoid a paradox at least.

Thirteen had seen this action, as she was keeping a watchful eye on her past selves due to them acting strangely, and assumed that Eleven was remembering the last time he'd met a past self. Since he hadn't yet saved Gallifrey with Ten, he was probably remembering the time their fifth incarnation had suddenly appeared in the TARDIS; that'd been right after Martha left, Thirteen recalled. Still, her biggest worry at the moment was how down Eleven seemed, as it was extremely disconcerting to see him be as quiet as this. Remembering her thoughts from the time, she knew exactly what to say to make him feel better.

"Hey, bowtie?" She scooted around Twelve to get closer to him, noticing how he tensed up as she did so. "Look, I remember how we felt after that whole thing with Amy, so I'm just going to start off with this: they don't hate you."

"What?!" Rory's head shot up before he could stop it, and he was suddenly looking straight into Thirteen's warm blue eyes. He just thought she was going to offer condolences for the older version of Amy, but this? Did the Doctor really believe that they hated him after what happened yesterday?

"Of course they don't hate you! I honestly don't know why that even crossed our mind." Thirteen continued vehemently, ignoring Rory's shock. "I mean _sure_ , anyone's bound to be upset at first after we lied and said we could save a version of our friend, and then we didn't. And yes-" She held up a hand as though she expected Rory to defend himself. "-I know it was necessary, to keep them safe from the handbots and all that, but Rory'd just seen you leave behind a future version of his wife when you said you could save her. Of course he's going to be angry. Of course he's going to... lash out."

Rory winced, the emotions he'd felt the day before suddenly flooding back.

_Amy. Amy was outside. Shut outside, deliberately, by the man in front of him. He'd had a very long day, and emotions were overwhelming him; anger, determination, sorrow, guilt, you name it. A version of his wife who'd been here for 36 years was outside those doors, and the Doctor was gazing at him with those old, sad eyes. Rory felt like punching that stupid pitying look off his face, but a small part of him knew it wouldn't do any good, even acknowledging that he was trying to do the right thing. However, this was thrown to the side when Amy started banging on the door again._

_"Look." The Doctor was saying desperately. "We take this Amy, we leave ours. Only one Amy in the TARDIS. Which one do you want?"_

_He actually had the audacity to raise Rory's hand to the door latch; for one wild moment, he considered opening it there and then, and welcoming the older Amy back with open arms. Only the thought of the other Amy, the one he hadn't left behind, made him hesitate._

_"It's your choice." The Doctor gazed sadly at him again. It was at this point Rory snapped; everything he'd gone through in the past few hours raised his emotions to the surface, and he turned his best death glare onto the man who lied to him._

_"This isn't fair." He hissed, feeling like his soul was split in two; the options were the same person, so why was it such a hard choice? The fact that he had to choose at all was his main concern; the Doctor was forcing him to make an impossible choice. "You're turning me into you."_

_Even though he'd meant it with full offense, he couldn't suppress the flicker of remorse he felt when the Doctor recoiled slightly, guilt burning clear as day in his eyes before he dropped his gaze._

It was remembering this action, more than anything else, that really cemented Thirteen's words as true. Rory felt awful. He was definitely going to sort this out with his version of the Doctor when this was all over.

"But you don't need to worry!" Thirteen was still speaking softly to him. "They're your best friends. They could never hate you. They recognise that you've made some bad decisions, and they accept you anyway. They're as good as family."

"I-I know." Rory managed to stutter. They'd never confirmed it aloud before, but this version of his friend had clearly had a lot of time to think about it.

"Great." Thirteen beamed back. "Now that's out the way, our second port of call is getting them a house. I know you're starting to have doubts about their safety at this point, so it's the most logical course of action, right? You can have an arrangement where you pick them up every so often. That's what I do with my fam, anyway."

"Fam?" Martha raised an eyebrow at Thirteen, half grinning.

"Timey-wimey." Thirteen reminded her with a knowing smile. Martha conceded, shrugging.

"What the _hell_ are you lot saying?" Jack called from his maintenance hatch, sure he was hearing things wrong.

"Oh, shut up, ears!" Thirteen reached out a leg to gently kick at Jack's torso before turning back to Rory, who was still processing. Was the Doctor really so concerned about their safety that he was willing to buy them a house? "Anyway, bowtie, I'm sure you'll be able to make the house thing work. Amy'll take some convincing, but I'm sure she'll realise it's all for the best. As for Rory, just get him a red Jaguar convertible. That's a type of car, if you didn't know. He'll be fine after that. It'll also hopefully make up for what we did on Apalapucia."

"B-but... that's his favourite car." Rory stuttered, utterly shocked that Thirteen had retained such a small piece of information.

"You don't think I remember him showing us a picture of one?" Thirteen laughed, looking over the console fondly at who she thought was the happy couple. "Ah, I miss the Ponds. Appreciate them while you can bowtie, I miss those times! I did tend to get myself into extremely ridiculous situations around them, though. I don't miss that."

"Oi!" Rory finally felt the need to defend himself. "They weren't that ridiculous. Plus, I think you'll find most of them weren't my fault-"

"Completely untrue, on both accounts." Thirteen smirked, pointing her sonic at him accusingly. She assumed her talk had worked to get him feeling more like himself again. "Only _you_ would land the TARDIS in the oval office in front of Richard Nixon, then smack headlong into it after turning it invisible."

"And after that, I then proceeded to solve all his problems using only a few maps, some jammy dodgers and a fez." Rory retorted. "Have any of you lot done that?"

"Well, that's a bit of a stupid question, since we're the same person." Thirteen grinned back. "And may I remind you that they never ended up giving you the fez. I think I'd remember River shooting one of those off me a second time."

"Wow, my future sounds so bright, guys." Jack interrupted sardonically, passing them another pile of circuit boards.

"Says you, Mr. Slitheen-in-Downing-Street." Thirteen retorted. "How are the Empty children, by the way? Still sent to their rooms?"

"Hey now, don't start coming for me!" Jack exclaimed in a mock-offended tone.

"Me either!" Martha jumped in quickly after seeing Thirteen turn to her instead. "This isn't fair, you're the oldest. You know everything stupid _we've_ done, but for us, the stupid things _you've_ gotten yourself into are yet to come."

"Who says I've gotten into any at all?" Thirteen tried to defend herself. She was met with three different versions of a you're-not-fooling-anyone expression.

"Oh, _please_." Rory snorted derisively. "You probably got yourself into one right after you regenerated."

"Still." Thirteen folded her arms obstinately, deciding not to tell him exactly how correct he was. Her eyes wandered to her twelfth body, who had remained as silent as possible so far. "Oh, I _can_ tell you about eyebrows' situations! His are much worse than mine."

"Hey, don't bring me into this!" Bill protested. "Also, I highly doubt that. The stupidest thing I've done recently is trying to act normal around Bill for two weeks, when I'd actually gone blind."

There was a moment of silence in which everyone stared at her, and for one horrible moment Bill felt like she'd said something wrong.

"No. way." Martha denied flatly, still staring widely at Bill. "There's absolutely no way you went blind. You'd go crazy! You wouldn't be able to walk two feet in front of you, let alone fly the TARDIS."

"Thanks for your vote of confidence, sandshoes." Bill rolled her eyes, grinning. She'd picked up on the nicknames that Thirteen had been using, and thoroughly enjoyed them.

"No, it's not the fact he went blind I can't believe." Rory pondered, staring thoughatfully at Bill. "As we've established, we get ourselves into stupid situations all the time. No, it's the fact he managed to keep it hidden for two weeks that I'm having trouble believing."

"I did!" Bill insisted vehemently. "I modified some sunglasses to help me see a little bit, but other than that I managed two whole weeks blind without Bill finding out."

"Come on, even _I_ know that sounds fake." Jack cut in, still half-under the console. "I mean, sunglasses? Really?"

"Would you stop butting into the conversation whenever you feel like it, please?" Bill retorted, noting how effective a Scottish accent was for sarcasm. She turned to Thirteen, who'd surely remember something like going blind for two weeks. "Tell them, rainbows."

"I will neither confirm nor deny." Thirteen stifled a laugh at Bill's betrayed expression. "I just want to see how this plays out."

"Alright, fine! I'll prove it to you." Bill grinned suddenly, jumping to her feet and leaning around the console. "Bill! Come here a second, my previous selves don't seem to believe me when I say I managed to hide the fact that I was blind from you for two weeks."

A second later, the real Twelve had joined them, glad to be away from the scrutiny of his companions; he glanced quickly at Thirteen for a second before turning to his previous bodies.

"It's true, unfortunately." He admitted. "We were doing a spacewalk when my helmet failed, so he gave me his."

"Ah. Sounds like something we'd do." Martha shifted uncomfortably, remembering how quickly Ten had sacrificed himself to expose the Plasmavore to the Judoon.

"And you didn't notice for two weeks?!" Rory asked incredulously. He felt like if his Doctor went blind, they'd notice immediately, he was so clumsy.

"Well, I had other things on my mind." Twelve answered vaguely. Bill shook her head in amusement.

"Yeah, the UN secretary general broke into her apartment looking for me when she was on a date." Bill grinned, seeing the wince on her own face. She decided she enjoyed embarrassing her tutor in front of his past selves.

"Ooh, yeah, sorry about that." Thirteen winced, meeting Twelve's eyes for a second before fixing her gaze on the floor. Bill looked at her strangely; before Twelve had joined the conversation, she'd been perfectly outgoing and lively, and talking as often as possible. However, since he'd arrived, her body language, composure, and _everything_ seemed to be much more awkward and reserved. She'd even started slouching and refused to make eye contact with anyone.

"It's fine." Twelve hadn't noticed this; instead, he was glaring at Bill. "It wasn't your fault they wanted to see you so badly."

"I guess it wasn't as bad as the simulation version of me, who put the Pope in your room instead." Bill smirked, remembering how much she'd laughed when Twelve had told her about that for the first time.

"Simulation?" Rory asked, remembering the Dream Lord with a shudder.

"The Pope?" Martha tried to imagine said Pope in her own apartment, and stifled a laugh.

"Spoilers." The word was out of Twelve's mouth before he could stop it; immediately, his gaze turned to Thirteen, as she'd surely wonder how Bill had known about his inside joke with River. To his shock, however, she hadn't even looked up; she just continued adjusting the circuit boards, gazing sadly into the middle distance.

Twelve stared sideways at his own body, sending Bill a questioning look that asked _'what's up with her?'._

Bill shrugged, replying with a stare that plainly replied _'how should I know?'._

Twelve raised an eyebrow and jerked his head slightly, clearly wondering _'why don't you ask her?'._

Immediately, Bill's eyes widened and she shook her head slightly. Twelve took this to mean _'because she'll probably see right through me, I've been trying to keep a low profile for a reason you know'._

Twelve replied by rolling his eyes and crossing his arms, which Bill interpreted as _'have more faith in yourself'._

In return, she also rolled her eyes, but sighed in defeat; Thirteen had managed to cheer up two of her previous incarnations, so she definitely deserved the same treatment. She sent a glare at her own body, which clearly meant _'fine, but don't be surprised if this backfires'._

"What's up, rainbows?" Bill nudged Thirteen's shoulder slightly, which brought her eyes back into focus. "You've gone quiet."

"Oh, it's nothing." Thirteen waved slightly in dismissal, but her eyes flitted to Twelve for half a second. "Nothing _you_ need to be concerned about, anyway. You two just enjoy the many adventures you have to come!" She tried to smile, but it came out strained; she knew Twelve and Bill only had about two major adventures left before disaster struck. Before she knew it, she was speaking again. "Listen, I know I'm not supposed to say anything about your future, but-"

"Oh, no!" Bill interrupted, quickly holding up a finger. "No, no. _These_ two may have needed someone to talk to..." She gestured at Rory and Martha, "...but _I'm_ doing perfectly fine, thank you. And please don't reveal anything about the future, I'd rather live through it myself, if you don't mind."

"But..." Thirteen protested half-heartedly, wanting nothing more in that moment than to warn her previous self to not bring Bill with them on Missy's 'redemption' trip. Unfortunately, as the seconds lengthened, her spur of the moment decision to warn them seemed more and more reckless.

"No buts!" Bill said firmly. "I don't want to know the future, and I certainly don't need any reassurance. Bill and I are doing fine right now, unlike you, clearly, as ever since Bill came over you've gone all small and awkward. So please, tell us what's wrong, and maybe we can help _you_ like you helped bowtie and sandshoes. And so help me god, if you refuse again, I'll eat a pear so flavoursome you'll still be tasting it now."

While Thirteen couldn't help but wince slightly at the imagery of the last sentence, she also noticed that something about her previous regeneration seemed... off. From the slight gestures he used while talking, to the way he talked, to the determined expression on his face... in fact, now she thought about it, he was kind of acting like-

CRASH!

Suddenly, the whole console room recoiled slightly as though they'd crashed into something; Twelve slid awkwardly into Rory's side, and Thirteen was left sprawling across Jack's chest. Martha had been knocked against the railing, and Bill had knocked her head on the console. Rubbing the spot frantically, she looked over the console to see that all the companions had stumbled into the railing on the left hand side.

"Sorry! Flicked the wrong switch." Jack buried himself deeper into the console, trying to find the lever he'd accidentally leant on. Since Thirteen had fallen on top of him, she was in a prime position to help, so she began reconnecting some wires while muttering something about gravity stabilizers. "One second..." Jack reached out his arm, trying desperately to get to the switch he was looking for.

"Take your time." Twelve muttered, moving slowly away from Rory; he didn't like being in such close proximity to his previous body, but from the calculated gaze Thirteen had been sending Bill during her speech, he suspected the crash had come at exactly the right time.

"Got it!" Jack finally hit the correct lever triumphantly, causing the sudden incline in the console room to right itself. He slid out from inside the hatch to grin sheepishly over the at the recovering group of companions. "Sorry about that."

"Right, where were we?" Thirteen turned back to Bill and Twelve, having lost her train of thought. The two glanced furtively at each other.

"You were... telling us about the future?" Twelve tentatively reminded her, knowing that Bill's speech had changed her mind about giving them spoilers.

"Right." Thirteen gave her a kind smile, a smile so kind that it seemed to take all the sadness there was inside it and still come out as a smile. "Unfortunately, he's right, it's not a good idea to tell you anything. The laws of time are pretty strict, and telling you could cause a paradox, or worse."

"Right." Twelve nodded; just as he thought. Thirteen, however, took his resolve to mean something else.

"I mean, I can't tell you anything _directly_." She explained hurriedly. "I know, from my reaction to seeing you again just now, it might not _seem_ good, but I swear you're fine! I mean, sure, I hadn't seen you since you left, and I don't technically know where you are at the moment, but I do know you're happy, and that's what counts, isn't it?"

"Uh, sure." Twelve wasn't sure what to think as he stared into the warm blue eyes of his next regeneration, but he couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his face, as he knew she meant well. "That's what matters."

"Glad you agree!" Thirteen beamed, seeming to finally be back to her old self as she clapped Twelve happily on the shoulder; before she knew it, however, her gaze grew wide with concern as she turned and stared over the console. "Okay, Bill, it's been nice talking to you again, but I need you to go save my fam. They're talking to Jack."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Please keep in mind that I didn't actually rewatch The Girl Who Waited, I just reread the script, so sorry if there's any parts that aren't quite matching.)
> 
> If you enjoyed, please leave a comment, they really help to motivate me when writing the next chapter! :D


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder:
> 
> Nine > Rose  
> Rose > Jack  
> Jack > Nine  
> Ten > Donna  
> Donna > Martha  
> Martha > Ten  
> Eleven > Amy  
> Amy > Rory  
> Rory > Eleven  
> Twelve <-> Bill  
> Thirteen <-> Graham

"Oops, sorry about that." Rose tried to smile winningly at the young man she'd stumbled into during the crash. "Didn't mean to bump into you there."

"Nah, it's fine." Ryan accepted the hand offered to him, as in the chaos of the moment, he'd been knocked to the floor. After he'd been pulled to his feet, however, the hand didn't immediately let go.

"Well, hello there." Rose started shaking his hand in greeting, a smirk growing on her face. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Yes, we know." A woman's voice said from behind them. Rose turned to see Yaz and Graham, who were both regarding her with amusement; Yaz smiled at her before continuing. "We've met you before. In the future."

"Yeah, so don't start with that whole flirting thing." Ryan finally managed to free his hand from Rose's grasp. "You did it before, a couple weeks ago when we first met."

"Yeah, and don't I know it." Graham grumbled, sliding his hands into the pockets of the hoodie he was wearing; every time he lowered his head, blonde hair immediately fell into his face. It made him uncomfortable.

"Oh really?" Rose eyed Graham for a second before allowing herself to hope; if Jack was still in the Doctor's life after four regenerations, perhaps she was as well. "I gather you're not allowed to tell me the details?"

"Probably not, no." Yaz grimaced, glancing over at Thirteen across the room. "It was just the four of us, though. The Doctor wasn't there."

"What about Rose? Was she not with me?" Rose couldn't stop herself from asking, trying to keep any emotion from flooding her voice. Her heart seemed to stop when she was met with three different confused expressions.

"Rose?" Ryan questioned. Rose wordlessly pointed over at her own body, which was still talking to Ten and Donna. "Oh, her. No, it was just us. Well, to start with, it was just you and, er, Jane. Me and Yaz arrived later."

Graham fought the urge to elbow Ryan in the stomach; if Jack had seen fit to kiss him in his own body, he'd hardly imagine what he'd do to this one. Luckily, Rose was too preoccupied with a different train of thought to notice Graham's blush.

"Really?" She asked, her eyes slightly unfocused; she thought for sure that if Jack had managed to meet different versions of the Doctor, then she could too. It's not like he could've actually lived out that 1000 years, she reasoned; Jack may be from the 51st century, but he was still human. She managed to keep the desperation from her voice as she tried again. "Has he mentioned her, at least?"

"Nah." Graham shook his head, which caused hair to fall into his face again. He brushed it away irritably. "But that's not all that strange, really. The Doc never tells us anything about himself, let alone people he's travelled with."

"I guess." Rose replied uneasily, remembering suddenly that her version of the Doctor was the ninth incarnation, and if his future selves were anything to go by, he'd already travelled with many other people that he'd neglected to mention to her. She resolved to ask him about them when this was all over. "Sorry, which Doctor did you guys come with?"

"Uh, I think he said Thirteen." Yaz remembered, but faltered at seeing Rose's blank look.

"That's the one with the grey coat." Ryan supplied helpfully, pointing over at her. "You know, with the rainbow lining?"

"Ah right, the talkative one." Rose nodded, looking over at the plethora of Doctors sitting next to the console. "I wish I could know if I've met any other ones."

"Oh right, you weren't there when everyone introduced themselves, were you?" Yaz realised suddenly. "Here, I'll fill you in. I'm Yaz, this is Ryan and this is... Jane. If I'm remembering correctly, those two over there are called Martha and Donna, and they came with..."

As Yaz caught Rose up, Ryan turned to his grandad, who was looking exceptionally small due to his slouching.

"Is it just me, or is he acting differently from last time?" Ryan muttered.

"I dunno, he seems pretty much the same." Graham replied quietly. "In what way is he different?"

"It's more... his vibes." Ryan eyed Rose suspiciously. "Like, he just seems a lot more low key. Last time he was much more enthusiastic."

"Maybe it's the fact that last time he was on the run after stealing a spaceship, and this time he's just sent us a distress call." Graham reasoned, rolling his eyes. "I think you're reading into this a bit too much, son."

"Maybe." Ryan admitted quietly, as Yaz began to end her explanation.

"And that grey-haired version is the Twelfth one." She was saying. "I think he came with that guy, Nardole..." Yaz pointed over to the short man in the red coat, who was standing near the woman who'd kissed the two newest Doctors upon meeting them. "...And Bill, who... seems to be coming to join us now."

Ryan and Graham turned, and saw that Twelve was indeed speed-walking his way over to them. Remembering how to interact for once, he smiled hesitantly at the unlikely group.

"Hey..." He began, eyeing Jack pointedly. "Rainbows over there just sent me over to see if you needed help fending him off." He gestured back to the console, where Thirteen was watching; after seeing them looking, she beamed at them, waving frantically. Ryan smiled; it was strange to see Graham's body look so happy and carefree.

"Oh no, it's fine, we were just chatting." Yaz assured him. "He wasn't outside when everyone introduced themselves, so I was just catching him up."

" _Really?_ " Twelve asked skeptically. Rose could only respond with a slightly sheepish smile; she wanted to apologise for the slight flirting mishap earlier, but she knew Jack probably wouldn't say something so trivial as that. Plus she wasn't sure if this Bill had met Jack in the future, and so would know if that was out of character for him.

"Well, yeah, it might've been our very first interaction..." Ryan admitted, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "But we put a stop to it real quick."

"You sure did." Rose grinned back, trying to regain her lost confidence to keep up appearances. She could worry about the Doctor's extended lifespan later, when she was back in her own body. She turned to Twelve. "So, Bill, was it? How'd you meet the Doctor?"

"Oh, uh..." Twelve simultaneously tried to remember his and Bill's first interaction, and tried to imagine it from her point of view. "Well, I work in a cafeteria at the uni he lectures for. I always heard the students raving about him, so one day I attended one, and it was just as good as everyone said. One day he pulled me aside and said he wanted to personally tutor me, and, well, things kind of escalated from there."

"They always do." Rose muttered, rolling her eyes. Twelve frowned; if Jack had arrived with Nine, hadn't he _just_ joined the team?

"The Doctor... lectures... at a university?" Ryan stared at Twelve in amazement, trying and failing to picture it.

"I'm surprised he manages to stay in one place for so long." Yaz remarked. "What does he teach?"

"Wait, how'd you mean, it escalated from there?" Graham narrowed his eyes, wondering how much danger the Doctor had put this young woman in.

"Yes, he lectures at a university, and he's good at it!" Twelve defended himself, trying to keep from glaring at Ryan. "He teaches everything, really. Whatever he feels like on the day. There's no set curriculum." He then turned to meet Graham's concerned stare. "And by 'escalated', I mean one second we were staring at a puddle, and the next, that same puddle swallowed up a girl I liked and chased us to the far ends of the universe."

"I see." Yaz stared strangely at Twelve. "Well, we know how it is with living liquids. We battled an army of living mud in the early 17th century."

"Ah yeah, that wasn't fun. The Doc... er..." Graham trailed off, realising that he couldn't very well tell the previous companions that the Doctor'd been accused of being a witch. "The Doc almost landed us in it when he interfered with an unfair witch trial."

"Yeah, luckily he had those fake papers that said he was the Witchfinder General." Ryan caught on, grinning knowingly at Graham. "King James bought that, he did. He even thought we were his crew."

"Yeah, after he'd stopped flirting with you, that is." Graham grinned back, causing Ryan's grin to drop immediately in embarrassment.

Twelve subtly flinched, and glanced at Jack; he remembered, very clearly actually, that Jack was always trying to convince Rose that certain historical figures had flirted with him; this list included Leonardo Da Vinci, William Shakespeare, and of course, James I. Rose had never believed him, and the Doctor'd thought it was hilarious, so he'd refused to provide any proof.

Twelve fully expected Jack to immediately rush over to Rose and say 'I told you so'. However, to his surprise, Jack's body only looked slightly intrigued.

"You've met James I?" Rose asked curiously. Twelve glanced suspiciously at her, realising something wasn't right.

"Yeah, it was pretty cool when me and Jane weren't being patronised to death for being women." Yaz rolled her eyes. "We also met Rosa Parks last year. I thought Ryan was going to pass out from the excitement."

"Hey, my nan just talked about her a lot, okay?" Ryan rushed to defend himself.

"Still, that's pretty cool." Rose reassured him. "Rose was telling me just last night about how she met Charles Dickens."

"Woah, really?" Graham's head shot up, his new green eyes sparking with interest. He loved reading Dickens books in his downtime.

Twelve, meanwhile, now looked even more suspicious; he remembered their first few travels on the TARDIS, and they'd never brought up their encounter with the Gelth. The fact that Jack had no business knowing about that filled him with unease. Something was wrong.

"Bill, have _you_ met any famous people?"

It took a few seconds for Twelve to realise they were addressing him, and a few more to frantically think of his answer.

"Oh, er, not really." He shook his head slightly. "Not unless you count the UN secretary general. Or the President of the World. Or... the Empress of the Ice Warriors."

This was a test; Twelve knew Jack had encountered the Ice Warriors when he was a Time Agent, and would bring up his heroic success story of defeating them whenever he got the chance. To his dismay, however, Jack's body didn't even bat an eyelid. What was wrong with him?

"There isn't a President of the World." Yaz narrowed her eyes at Twelve sceptically. "And even if there was, who on earth would be able to even meet the requirements for such an important job?"

"Who'd you think?" Twelve smirked, flicking his head towards the console. Four pairs of eyes widened.

"Dear lord, it's like the Banksy thing all over again." Graham pressed his palms into his eyes tiredly.

Meanwhile, something had caught Twelve's eye; he turned his head, only to see Nardole talking to River, Amy and Eleven. While he wanted to keep an eye on Jack, and find out what on earth was wrong with him, the most immediate danger was Nardole being an idiot and letting something slip about the future.

He found himself quietly slipping away from the group, whose conversation had now turned to the possibility of the Doctor being Banksy, and made his way hurriedly over to his previous companions, solely to prevent any paradoxes. There was definitely no other reason why he was so desperate to get over there. None at all.

"-so, where are you in your timeline then?" Nardole was asking. "Done the Pandorica yet?"

"Yes, actually. I've just done the Byzantium." River eyed Nardole curiously. "Sorry, will I meet you in the future?"

"No, don't worry about him." Twelve stepped in. If looks could kill, he would be responsible for Nardole's instant death. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. The Doctor's probably just mentioned you to him."

He knew this wouldn't convince River, but he also knew that she wouldn't actively ask for spoilers, so she dropped it. Unfortunately, that meant her questioning gaze was now turned on him; Twelve's eyes kept meeting a spot just to the right of her face, as he knew that if he looked directly at her, either he'd break down and tell her everything or she'd know instantly who he was. He didn't want to find out which would happen first.

"Oh _really_?" River looked him up and down, an unreadable expression on her features. "Your name is Bill, right? And you came with him?" Her gaze flitted back to Nardole, who seemed to have realised he shouldn't have been discussing timelines and so was remaining silent.

"... _Yes_." Twelve had to try exceptionally hard not to say 'unfortunately'. "Twelve is our Doctor, he's the-"

"Tall and Scottish one, yes, I remember." River gazed over at Twelve's body, but also at Thirteen. "It's funny, I thought _my_ version was his last face. I've been trying to create a spotters guide, you know, but it's exceptionally hard when there's almost no record of some of his faces. Had to track them down myself." She winked at him. "I wonder how he managed to regenerate again? One second, dear, I'll go ask him."

She stepped forward towards the console, causing Twelve to panic and immediately stop her. He knew Bill would have no idea how to answer that question.

"Maybe after they've fixed the TARDIS?" He suggested, still refusing to meet her eyes.

"Oh, of course." After her momentary confusion, River smiled sweetly at Twelve. She'd clearly noticed his unease. "Do _you_ know me in the future too, Bill?"

"Oh, uh, only from a photo on his desk." Twelve replied quietly. He'd seen Bill's eyes widen in recognition right before River kissed her outside, so he could only assume that's where she knew her from. "He said you're his-"

"Spoilers, dear." River cut in, glancing quickly at Eleven and Amy.

"O-oh, right." Twelve, abashed, also glanced at them, once again wondering what point in their timeline they were from.

The sudden change in attention was causing Eleven to look between them both curiously; it was killing him to stay silent, but he wasn't an idiot, he knew speaking would probably give himself away. Amy was standing next to him, also dutifully silent, and probably also wondering what was causing this strange tense atmosphere. Finally, he could bare their stares no longer, and turned to his future wife.

"River, could I speak to you for a moment?" He asked her, keeping his tone light. His future companion's eyes darted to him, then away again; Twelve had tried to keep the unbearable pain out of his expression, but Eleven had seen, and he couldn't say he liked it.

"Of course, Amy." River smiled knowingly at him, striding over to a space nearer to the console but far enough away so that Twelve wouldn't hear them when they spoke. Eleven followed immediately, leaving Amy alone with Twelve; after a particularly nasty death glare, Nardole also edged away from them, towards the group Twelve had just left.

Twelve leaned against the hand rail nervously, looking anywhere but at Amy; sure, him and Rory hadn't always seen eye to eye, but sometime between the Pandorica and Demon's Run he found himself caring for him just as much as he cared for Amy. They were like a family, even before he'd married River.

The awkward silence stretched on, Twelve wondering if it would be weird if he asked what their last trip in the TARDIS was. For Amy, however, the silence wasn't awkward at all, as she was concentrated on watching Eleven and River's conversation; her own body's hand gestures seemed to be getting more frantic, which meant Eleven was getting frustrated. Finding it strange all of a sudden to identify the Doctor's mannerisms on her own body, she looked away, and remembered that a future companion was leaning on the handrail awkwardly next to her. Cursing her lack of manners, she leaned next to Twelve, trying to think of something they could talk about.

"So, he almost destroyed the first human colony, huh?" She started with, remembering him telling that story to everyone. "How did that come about, exactly?"

"O-oh! Uh..." Twelve tried to not act blindsided by the question. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted Rory to know what happened, either, but he found himself talking before he could think more about it. "Well, the Doctor and I landed on this completely empty colony for the humans after the sun expanded, and he assumed they hadn't arrived yet. There were robots there, who gave us badges that showed our emotions. The only thing is, the robots were programmed to keep you happy, so if you weren't, they... uh... killed you."

"Ah." Amy winced.

"Yeah. The Doctor didn't want the humans to arrive on a colony like that, so he went to the core and started to blow everything up." Twelve continued. "Luckily he managed to stop, after he realised that the humans were already in the colony, in cryo-sleep."

"I see." Amy nodded, remembering how he'd told them before that the robots had been defeated by resetting them. She shivered involuntarily, remembering her own experience with certain robots from the day before. "Well, I know how it is with killer robots. They always think they're helping by killing you, don't they?"

"Mmm." Twelve could only say in response, as he was now trying to stop himself from staring at his previous companion, horrified. So they'd come from Apalapucia. He winced a little, remembering Rory's rage-filled expression and his words that stung even now. It must have been pretty recent for them, which meant Rory was probably still angry with him; the details on how they repaired their friendship were a little fuzzy, but he did remember buying Rory's favourite car to make it up to him. As much as he didn't want to, he knew Bill would probably want to ask about it. "Anything... in particular?"

"Yes." Amy sighed, looking over at what she knew to be her husband behind the console. "It's quite complicated, I'm not sure how to explain it. I just wish I could talk to someone about it, but I probably wouldn't get a straight answer out of the Doctor. And, uh, Amy..." She paused, trying to think of a Rory-ish thing to say. "...She's been through enough, I don't want to worry her."

Amy was bang on; Twelve couldn't stop himself from smiling fondly. He'd also thought of something; it could possibly cause a paradox, but surely he was allowed to be a little selfish in his old age.

"Maybe you could talk to _my_ Doctor about it?" Twelve had to keep the excitement from bleeding into his voice. "After they've fixed the TARDIS, of course. He's probably had a lot of time to think over what happened, so he could probably give you some good advice."

"Mmm, maybe." Amy glanced over at Twelve's body behind the console, a strange look on her face. Twelve's smile immediately dropped.

"What's wrong?" He asked quietly, though he was certain he already knew. The way Amy was looking at his body, he'd seen it before; it was a look that didn't really see him, instead it was one that was trying to imagine a large chin and a bowtie instead of his actual features. He knew he'd had that gaze turned on him fairly recently, but couldn't for the life of him remember the details.

_The first thing he saw was her wide eyes. He took note of how big they were, and how they seemed to fill her face completely. But what hurt the most were the emotions inside them; one second, they'd been filled with affection and sadness, how one would look at a close friend, and the next, they were filled with shock and disbelief._

_How one would look at a stranger._

_Sure, at that moment he couldn't remember her name, but he knew she meant a great deal to him. And that her, staring at him with no recognition in her eyes, hurt him more than he could express._

Twelve shivered; while Clara was nothing but a vague impression on his mind, she was still the first face this face saw, and he did remember how devastated he'd been by how long it'd taken for her to accept his new appearance. Sure, it'd always been a slight fear of his, but Clara's reaction had been enough to make him genuinely insecure. Amy and Rory meant a great deal to him, and he knew that them looking at him like he was a stranger would probably break him.

"It's just a bit weird, you know?" Amy examined who she thought was Twelve, looking for any familiar mannerisms or facial expressions. She frowned slightly after finding none. "The face thing is kinda tripping me up a bit."

"Yeah?" Twelve cursed his emotions, which seemed to be much more amplified in Bill's body. He also cursed his abnormal Time Lord biology, which clearly kept him from fully connecting with the humans he loved. If regeneration wasn't a thing, he'd definitely feel more comfortable visiting past companions, and they'd feel more comfortable talking to him in return. He wouldn't even be in this current situation.

"I know it's stupid." Amy shook her head, still staring at Bill. "I mean, they're the same person. They're the Doctor, just at different points in his life. Logically, I know that." She sighed. "It's just weird. Us humans aren't used to our friends changing appearances suddenly, so I guess it's a little like talking to a stranger."

Twelve was beginning to feel like he was intruding. Amy clearly thought she was just talking to a future companion. He didn't like this, he didn't like this at all, it was like he was invading on her privacy. He tried desperately to think about this in particular, instead of the things she was actually saying.

"I understand." He said quietly, his eyes fixed on some area of the floor. Because he did. He did understand. Obviously, he didn't feel that way himself, as regeneration was completely normalised on Gallifrey, but if you were used to everyone looking the exact same all the time, of course it'd feel strange to talk to a face you'd never seen before as though you knew them. He didn't blame his companions at all for asking questions, or for saying things that would be regarded as completely insensitive on Gallifrey.

_"Who are you?"_

He remembered Rose's reaction clear as day.

_"Where is he? Where's the Doctor? What have you done to him?"_

He'd been so shocked, then, as he thought it'd been very clear what had happened. He remembered staring at her in utter disbelief.

_"Send him back. I'm warning you; send the Doctor back right now!"_

He'd had to prove it was him. He'd had to literally recount their first meeting to to get her to believe him. And when she did...

_"Can you change back?"_

_"Do you want me to?"_

_"...Yeah."_

He closed his eyes. That was what'd hurt the most, telling Rose that _her_ Doctor was never coming back. That to her, he was now a stranger, who'd taken her Doctor away. He'd also assumed that because of this, she'd wanted to go home, but one action-packed adventure later she'd admitted that wasn't the case, and that she thought because he'd changed _he_ wouldn't want her there any more. That couldn't have been further from the truth, just as his affection for Amy and Rory hadn't changed after he'd regenerated. If only he could get them to see that, and maybe get them to look past his new appearance at the same time.

"Yeah?" Amy smiled slightly at him. "I'm glad. I just wish I could get over my feelings and talk to him normally, as I'm not sure I can act like nothing's changed. I guess we'll see."

"I guess we will." Twelve smiled back. As soon as he switched back, he would be sure to make a beeline for Rory and absolve the doubts he so clearly had. He would also apologise for Apalapucia while he was at it. "I'm sure he'll be pleased to see you again."

"Really?" Amy stared at Twelve. She hadn't even thought about the fact that from his perspective, they'd already parted ways. She winced, wondering what circumstances could have possibly stopped her from travelling with him.

"Definitely." Twelve smiled warmly at her. Amy found herself returning it.

Unbeknownst to them, Eleven was watching them from the corner of his eye, his arms crossed irritably. He unconsciously brought a hand up to adjust his bowtie, but ended up waving it slightly at his neck when he found nothing.

"I mean, what can they even be talking about?" He muttered grumpily, trying to cover his mistake by crossing his arms even tighter. "I do hope Amy's not telling her something embarrassing about me."

"Honestly, sweetie, she's your future companion, she's bound to have some stories about you herself." River pinched the bridge of her nose, sending an irritated gaze at her husband with an underlayer of fondness. When he'd pulled her away just to rant about how he was missing out on the banter between the other Doctors, she'd realised he'd only wanted to get her away from his future companion because of the things they were talking about.

"Yeah, but still." Eleven pouted. Now he'd evolved into complaining about Amy talking to his future companion, River noticed, and also periodically looking over at another group standing near the doors. After a particularly prolonged version of one of these glances, River rolled her eyes.

"Look, you clearly want to go talk to some past friends over there." She met his eyes firmly. "So please, go do it now before I smack that frown off your face so hard you'll regenerate."

"Ha, then there'll be two versions of old eyebrows over there." Eleven joked, forcing a smile onto Amy's face. "Or I can't regenerate in this body. Quick, try it and we'll see!"

 _"Doctor."_ River said warningly, glaring at her husband's signature everything-is-okay grin, which looked positively awkward on her mother's face. "I'm serious."

"Oh come on! That was... that was a funny..." Eleven stammered, trying to keep up the grin, but seeming to deflate under River's glare. "No. I-I cant. You know, paradoxes and all that..."

"Now, don't you _dare_ use that excuse." River intensified her glare, if that was at all possible. "You look like Amy right now, so just go and talk to them like you're her. It'll be simple." Her gaze softened. "I can tell you miss them."

Eleven shrunk even more under River's pitying gaze. He shook his head frantically, causing Amy's hair to whip around his face wildly.

"N-no, River, I can't..."

"Oh, to hell with that, you clearly need closure so you're talking to them whether you like it or not." River suddenly caught his arm in a vice grip and dragged him over to the three women standing by the doors. Eleven only had time to struggle for a few seconds before he was all but thrown into the circle of his past companions. "Hello, dears, my name is River, and this is Amy. We thought it'd be fun to come and talk to you." River winked at the closest one, which happened to be Ten. Eleven stared at him sadly, thinking he was Donna.

"Uh, hi?" Nine greeted them uncertainly, glancing at Ten and Donna before his gaze returned to the new arrivals. "I'm Rose. Which Doctor did you come with?"

"Oh, uh, the one with the hair..." Eleven sprung into action, nervously miming the way his hair flopped across his forehead. "...And the bowtie?"

Next to him, River mimed a large chin. Donna snorted, and Nine nodded in recognition.

"Well, anyway..." Eleven sent a disgruntled look at his future wife before once again converting his nervousness at facing his companions into false enthusiasm. "We just thought it'd be fun to come and, er, chat with some of the Doctor's previous companions. So, what are we talking about?"

No one got a chance to answer before the doors were flung open, so hard that they clanged loudly off the walls. Everyone immediately turned to look.

"Well, that was one _hell_ of a puzzle! I tell you, Doctor, locking the TARDIS doors was inspired. It took me _way_ too long to figure that one out."

The woman in the doorway was wearing Victorian-era attire, a black umbrella and what seemed to be a permanent smirk adorning her features. She stepped in, surveying the crowd in front of her.

"Of course, if I knew I'd be debasing myself on this _wonderful_ little trip, I'd have stayed in the vault. I had to apologise to your stupid TARDIS for turning it into a paradox machine before she would even open at least _one_ of her doors."

Eleven looked round at everyone, wondering who on earth had locked this woman in their TARDIS, and why. Most people seemed to look just as befuddled as he was, apart from Twelve, Bill, Nardole and Thirteen, who were all sporting identical expressions of shock and horror.

" _Still_ , I did it, and that's what counts, don't you think?" Missy grinned widely, twirling her umbrella. "Now, what's going on in here, then?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're still enjoying this story! If you are, please leave a comment, they really help to motivate me when writing future chapters :D


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